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OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES. 


THE  AUTOCRAT 


OF  THE 


BREAKFAST-TABLE. 


TTU.  «^ 


THE    AUTOCRAT 


BREAKFAST-TABLE 


Every  man  his  own  Boswell 


BOSTON: 

P  H  1  I.  L  I  P  S  .     S  A  M  P  S  C>  \     A  NT)     CO  M  P  A  X  Y 

M  DCCC  LVIII. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1858,  by 

OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES, 
in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


RIVERSIDE,  CAMBRIDGE: 

STEREOTYPED    AND    PRINTED    BY 
H.   0.    HOUQHTON   AND   COMPANY 


THE  AUTOCRAT'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 


THE  interruption  referred  to  in  the  first  sen- 
tence of  the  first  of  these  papers  was  just  a 
quarter  of  a  century  in  duration. 

Two  articles  entitled  "  The  Autocrat  of  the 
Breakfast-Table"  will  be  found  in  the  "New 
England  Magazine,"  formerly  published  in  Bos- 
ton by  J.  T.  and  E.  Buckingham.  The  date 
of  the  first  of  these  articles  is  November  1831, 
and  that  of  the  second  February  1832.  When 
"  The  Atlantic  Monthly "  was  begun,  twenty- 
five  years  afterwards,  and  the  author  was  asked 
to  write  for  it,  the  recollection  of  these  crude 
products  of  his  uncombed  literary  boyhood 
suggested  the  thought  that  it  would  be  a  cu- 
rious experiment  to  shake  the  same  bough 
again,  and  see  if  the  ripe  fruit  were  better  or 
worse  than  the  early  windfalls. 

So  began  this  series  of  papers,  which  nat- 
urally brings  those  earlier  attempts  to  my  own 
notice  and  that  of  some  few  friends  who  were 


vi        THE   AUTOCRAT'S   AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

idle  enough  to  read  them  at  the  time  of  their 
publication.  The  man  is  father  to  the  boy 
that  was,  and  I  am  my  own  son,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  in  those  papers  of  the  New  England 
Magazine.  If  I  find  it  hard  to  pardon  the 
boy's  faults,  others  would  find  it  harder.  They 
will  not,  therefore,  be  reprinted  here,  nor  as  I 
hope,  anywhere. 

But  a  sentence  or  two  from  them  will  perhaps 
bear  reproducing,  and  with  these  I  trust  the 
gentle  reader,  if  that  kind  being  still  breathes, 
will  be  contented. 

— cc  It  is  a  capital  plan  to  carry  a  tablet  with  you,  and, 
when  you  find  yourself  felicitous,  take  notes  of  your 
own  conversation." 

—  "  When  I  feel  inclined  to  read  poetry  I  take  down 
my  Dictionary.  The  poetry  of  words  is  quite  as  beau- 
tiful as  that  of  sentences.  The  author  may  arrange  the 
gems  effectively,  but  their  ftiape  and  luftre  have  been 
given  by  the  attrition  of  ages.  Bring  me  the  fineft  fim- 
ile  from  the  whole  range  of  imaginative  writing,  and  I 
will  fhow  you  a  fingle  word  which  conveys  a  more  pro- 
found, a  more  accurate,  and  a  more  eloquent  analogy." — 

— "  Once  on  a  time,  a  notion  was  ftarted,  that  if  all 
the  people  in  the  world  would  fhout  at  once,  it  might 
be  heard  in  the  moon.  So  the  projectors  agreed  it 
fhould  be  done  in  juft  ten  years.  Some  thousand  fhip- 
loads  of  chronometers  were  diftributed  to  the  selectmen 
and  other  great  folks  of  all  the  different  nations.  For 
a  year  beforehand,  nothing  else  was  talked  about  but  the 


THE   AUTOCRAT'S   AUTOBIOGRAPHY.       vii 

awful  noise  that  was  to  be  made  on  the  great  occafion. 
When  the  time  came,  everybody  had  their  ears  so  wide 
open,  to  hear  the  universal  ejaculation  of  Boo, — the 
word  agreed  upon, — that  nobody  spoke  except  a  deaf 
man  in  one  of  the  Fejee  Islands,  and  a  woman  in 
Pekin,  so  that  the  world  was  never  so  ftill  fmce  the 


There  was  nothing  better  than  these  things 
and  there  was  not  a  little  that  was  much  worse. 
A  young  fellow  of  two  or  three  and  twenty  has 
as  good  a  right  to  spoil  a  magazine-full  of 
essays  in  learning  how  to  write,  as  an  oculist 
like  Wenzel  had  to  spoil  his  hat-full  of  eyes 
in  learning  how  to  operate  for  cataract,  or  an 
elegant  like  Brummel  to  point  to  an  armful  of 
failures  in  the  attempt  to  achieve  a  perfect  tie. 
This  son  of  mine,  whom  I  have  not  seen  for 
these  twenty-five  years,  generously  counted, 
was  a  self-willed  youth,  always  too  ready  to 
utter  his  unchastised  fancies.  He,  like  too 
many  American  young  people,  got  the  spur 
when  he  should  have  had  the  rein.  He  there- 
fore helped  to  fill  the  market  with  that  unripe 
fruit  which  his  father  says  in  one  of  these  pa- 
pers abounds  in  the  marts  of  his  native  country. 
All  these  by-gone  shortcomings  he  would  hope 
are  forgiven,  did  he  not  feel  sure  that  very  few 
of  his  readers  know  anything  about  them.  In 
taking  the  old  name  for  the  new  papers,  he  felt 


viii      THE   AUTOCRAT'S   AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 

bound  to  say  that  he  had  uttered  unwise  things 
under  that -title,  and  if  it  shall  appear  that  his 
unwisdom  has  not  diminished  by  at  least  half 
while  his  years  have  doubled,  he  promises  not 
to  repeat  the  experiment  if  he  should  live  to 
double  them  again  and  become  his  own  grand- 
father. 

OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES. 
BOSTON  Nov.  ist  1858. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 


I  WAS  just  going  to  say,  when  I  was  interrupted, 
that  one  of  the  many  ways  of  classifying  minds  is 
under  the  heads  of  arithmetical  and  algebraical  in- 
tellects. All  economical  and  practical  wisdom  is  an 
extension  or  variation  of  the  following  arithmetical 
formula:  2-{-2=4.  Every  philosophical  proposition 
has  the  more  general  character  of  the  expression 
a+b=c.  We  are  mere  operatives,  empirics,  and 
egotists,  until  we  learn  to  think  in  letters  instead  of 
figures. 

They  all  stared.  There  is  a  divinity  student  lately 
come  among  us  to  whom  I  commonly  address  re- 
marks like  the  above,  allowing  him  to  take  a  certain 
share  in  the  conversation,  so  far  as  assent  or  pertinent 
questions  are  involved.  He  abused  his  liberty  on 
this  occasion  by  presuming  to  say  that  Leibnitz  had 
the  same  observation. — No,  sir,  I  replied,  he  has  not. 


2     THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

But  he  said  a  mighty  good  thing  about  mathematics, 
that  sounds  something  like  it,  and  you  found  it,  not 
in  the  original,  but  quoted  by  Dr.  Thomas  Reid.  I 
will  tell  the  company  what  he  did  say,  one  of  these 
days. 

If  I  belong  to  a  Society  of  Mutual  Admiration  ? 

— I  blush  to  say  that  I  do  not  at  this  present  moment. 
I  once  did,  however.  It  was  the  first  association  to 
which  I  ever  heard  the  term  applied ;  a  body  of 
scientific  young  men  in  a  great  foreign  city  who  ad- 
mired their  teacher,  and  to  some  extent  each  other. 
Many  of  them  deserved  it ;  they  have  become  famous 
since.  It  amuses  me  to  hear  the  talk  of  one  of  those 
beings  described  by  Thackeray — 

"  Letters  four  do  form  his  name  " — 

about  a  social  development  which  belongs  to  the  very 
noblest  stage  of  civilization.  All  generous  companies 
of  artists,  authors,  philanthropists,  men  of  science, 
are,  or  ought  to  be,  Societies  of  Mutual  Admiration. 
A  man  of  genius,  or  any  kind  of  superiority,  is  not 
debarred  from  admiring  the  same  quality  in  another, 
nor  the  other  from  returning  his  admiration.  They 
may  even  associate  together  and  continue  to  think 
highly  of  each  other.  And  so  of  a  dozen  such  men, 
if  any  one  place  is  fortunate  enough  to  hold  so  many. 
The  being  referred  to  above  assumes  several  false 
premises.  First,  that  men  of  talent  necessarily  hate 
each  other.  Secondly,  that  intimate  knowledge  or 


THE    OLD    GENTLEMAN   OPPOSITE. 


THE   AUTOCRAT   OF   THE   B^AKFAST-TABLE.  3 

habitual  association  destroys  our  admiration  of 
persons  whom  we  esteemed  highly  at  a  distance. 
Thirdly,  that  a  circle  of  clever  fellows,  who  meet 
together  to  dine  and  have  a  good  time,  have  signed 
a  constitutional  compact  to  glorify  themselves  and  to 
put  down  him  and  the  fraction  of  the  human  race 
not  belonging  to  their  number.  Fourthly,  that  it  is 
an  outrage  that  he  is  not  asked  to  join  them. 

Here  the  company  laughed  a  good  deal,  and  the 
old  gentleman  who  sits  opposite  said,  "  That's  it ! 
that's  it!" 

I  continued,  for  I  was  in  the  talking  vein.  As  to 
clever  people's  hating  each  other,  I  think  a  little 
extra  talent  does  sometimes  make  people  jealous. 
They  become  irritated  by  perpetual  attempts  and 
failures,  and  it  hurts  their  tempers  and  dispositions. 
Unpretending  mediocrity  is  good,  and  genius  is 
glorious ;  but  a  weak  flavor  of  genius  in  an  essen- 
tially common  person  is  detestable.  It  spoils  the 
grand  neutrality  of  a  commonplace  character,  as  the 
rinsings  of  an  unwashed  wineglass  spoil  a  draught 
of  fair  water.  No  wonder  the  poor  fellow  we  spoke 
of,  who  always  belongs  to  this  class  of  slightly 
flavored  mediocrities,  is  puzzled  and  vexed  by  the 
strange  sight  of  a  dozen  men  of  capacity  working 
and  playing  together  in  harmony.  He  a*nd  his  fel- 
lows are  always  fighting.  With  them  familiarity 
naturally  breeds  contempt.  If  they  ever  praise  each 
other's  bad  drawings,  or  broken-winded  novels,  or 


4     THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

spavined  verses,  nobody  ever  supposed  it  was  from 
admiration ;  it  was  simply  a  contract  between  them- 
selves and  a  publisher  or  dealer. 

If  the  Mutuals  have  really  nothing  among  them 
worth  admiring,  that  alters  the  question.  But  if  they 
are  men  with  noble  powers  and  qualities,  let  me  tell 
you,  that,  next  to  youthful  love  and  family  affections, 
there  is  no  human  sentiment  better  than  that  which 
unites  the  Societies  of  Mutual  Admiration.  And 
what  would  literature  or  art  be  without  such  associa- 
tions ?  Who  can  tell  what  we  owe  to  the  Mutual 
Admiration  Society  of  which  Shakspeare,  and  Ben 
Jonson,  and  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  were  members  ? 
Or  to  that  of  which  Addison  and  Steele  formed  the 
centre,  and  which  gave  us  the  Spectator  ?  Or  to 
that  where  Johnson,  and  Goldsmith,  and  Burke,  and 
Reynolds,  and  Beauclerk,  and  Boswell,  most  admir- 
ing among  all  admirers,  met  together  ?  Was  there 
any  great  harm  in  the  fact  that  the  Irvings  and 
Paulding  wrote  in  company?  or  any  unpardonable 
cabal  in  the  literary  union  of  Verplanck  and  Bryant 
and  Sands,  and  as  many  more  as  they  chose  to  asso- 
ciate with  them  ? 

The  poor  creature  does  not  know  what  he  is  talk- 
ing about,  when  he  abuses  this  noblest  of  institutions. 
Let  him  inspect  its  mysteries  through  the  knot-hole 
he  has  secured,  but  not  use  that  orifice  as  a  medium 
for  his  popgun.  Such  a  society  is  the  crown  of  a 
literary  metropolis;  if  a  town  has  not  material  for 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.     5 

it,  and  spirit  and  good  feeling  enough  to  organize  it, 
it  is  a  mere  caravansary,  fit  for  a  man  of  genius  to 
lodge  in,  but  not  to  live  in.  Foolish  people  hate  and 
dread  and  envy  such  an  association  of  men  of  varied 
powers  and  influence,  because  it  is  lofty,  serene, 
impregnable,  and,  by  the  necessity  of  the  case, 
exclusive.  Wise  ones  are  prouder  of  the  title 
M.  S.  M.  A.  than  of  all  their  other  honors  put 
together. 

All  generous  minds  have  a  horror  of  what  are 

commonly  called  "  facts."  They  are  the  brute  beasts 
of  the  intellectual  domain.  Who  does  not  know 
fellows  that  always  have  an  ill-conditioned  fact  or 
two  which  they  lead  after  them  into  decent  company 
like  so  many  bull-dogs,  ready  to  let  them  slip  at 
every  ingenious  suggestion,  or  convenient  generaliza- 
tion, or  pleasant  fancy  ?  I  allow  no  "  facts  "  at  this 
table.  What!  Because  bread  is  good  and  whole- 
some and  necessary  and  nourishing,  shall  you  thrust 
a  crumb  into  my  windpipe  while  I  am  talking  ?  Do 
not  these  muscles  of  mine  represent  a  hundred  loaves 
of  bread  ?  and  is  not  my  thought  the  abstract  of  ten 
thousand  of  these  crumbs  of  truth  with  which  you 
would  choke  off  my  speech  ? 

[The  above  remark  must  be  conditioned  and  quali- 
fied for  the  vulgar  mind.  The  reader  will  of  course 
understand  the  precise  amount  of  seasoning  which 
must  be  added  to  it  before  he  adopts  it  as  one 
of  the  axioms  of  his  life.  The  speaker  disclaims 


6  THE  AUTOCRAT   OF   THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

all  responsibility  for  its  abuse  in  incompetent 
hands.] 

This  business  of  conversation*  is  a  very  serious 
matter.  There  are  men  that  it  weakens  one  to  talk 
with  an  hour  more  than  a  day's  fasting  would  do. 
Mark  this  that  I  am  going  to  say,  for  it  is  as  good  as 
a  working  professional  man's  advice,  and  costs  you 
nothing:  It  is  better  to  lose  a  pint  of  blood  from 
your  veins  than  to  have  a  nerve  tapped.  Nobody 
measures  your  nervous  force  as  it  runs  away,  nor 
bandages  your  brain  and  marrow  after  the  opera- 
tion. 

There  are  men  of  esprit  who  are  excessively  ex- 
hausting to  some  people.  They  are  the  talkers  who 
have  what  may  be  called  jerky  minds.  Their 
thoughts  do  not  run  in  the  natural  order  of  sequence. 
They  say  bright  things  on  all  possible  subjects,  but 
their  zigzags  rack  you  to  death.  After  a  jolting  half- 
hour  with  one  of  these  jerky  companions,  talking  with 
a  dull  friend  affords  great  relief.  It  is  like  taking 
the  cat  in  your  lap  after  holding  a  squirrel. 

What  a  comfort  a  dull  but  kindly  person  is,  to  be 
sure,  at  times !  A  ground-glass  shade  over  a  gas- 
lamp  does  not  bring  more  solace  to  our  dazzled  eyes 
than  such  a  one  to  our  minds. 

"  Do  not  dull  people  bore  you  ?  "  said  one  of  the 
lady-boarders, — the  same  that  sent  me  her  autograph- 
book  last  week  with  a  request  for  a  few  original 
stanzas,  not  remembering  that  "  The  Pactolian  "  pays 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.     7 

me  five  dollars  a  line  for  every  thing  I  write  in  its 
columns. 

"  Madam,"  said  1,  (she  and  the  century  were  in 
their  teens  together,)  "  all  men  are  bores,  except  when 
we  want  them.  There  never  was  but  one  man  whom 
I  would  trust  with  my  latch-key." 

"  Who  might  that  favored  person  be  ?  " 

"  Zirnmermann." 

The  men  of  genius  that  I  fancy  most  have 

erectile  heads  like  the  cobra-di-capello.  You  remem- 
ber what  they  tell  of  William  Pinkney,  the  great 
pleader;  how  in  his  eloquent  paroxysms  the  veins 
of  his  neck  would  swell  and  his  face  flush  and  his 
eyes  glitter,  until  he  seemed  on  the  verge  of  apoplexy. 
The  hydraulic  arrangements  for  supplying  the  brain 
with  blood  are  only  second  in  importance  to  its  own 
organization.  The  bulbous-headed  fellows  that  steam 
well  when  they  are  at  work  are  the  men  that  draw 
big  audiences  and  give  us  marrowy  books  and  pic- 
tures. It  is  a  good  sign  to  have  one's  feet  grow  cold 
when  he  is  writing.  A  great  writer  and  speaker  once 
told  me  that  he  often  wrote  with  his  feet  in  hot 
water ;  but  for  this,  all  his  blood  would  have  run  into 
his  head,  as  the  mercury  sometimes  withdraws  into 
the  ball  of  a  thermometer. 

You  don't  suppose  that  my  remarks  made  at 

this  table  are  like  so  many  postage-stamps,  do  you, — 
each  to  be  only  once  uttered  ?  If  you  do,  you  are 
mistaken.  He  must  be  a  poor  creature  that  does  not 


8     THE  AUTOCKAT  OF  THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE. 

often  repeat  himself.  Imagine  the  author  of  the  ex- 
cellent piece  of  advice,  "  Know  thyself,"  never  allud- 
ing to  that  sentiment  again  during  the  course  of  a 
protracted  existence !  Why,  the  truths  a  man  carries 
about  with  him  are  his  tools ;  and  do  you  think  a 
carpenter  is  bound  to  use  the  same  plane  but  once 
to  smooth  a  knotty  board  with,  or  to  hang  up  his 
hammer  after  it  has  driven  its  fast  nail  ?  I  shall 
never  repeat  a  conversation,  but  an  idea  often.  I 
shall  use  the  same  types  when  I  like,  but-  not  com- 
monly the  same  stereotypes.  A  thought  is  often 
original,  though  you  have  uttered  it  a  hundred  times. 
It  has  come  to  you  over  a  new  route,  by  a  new  and 
express  train  of  associations. 

Sometimes,  but  rarely,  one  may  be  caught  making 
the  same  speech  twice  over,  and  yet  be  held  blame- 
less. Thus,  a  certain  lecturer,  after  performing  in  an 
inland  city,  where  dwells  a  Litteratrice  of  note,  was 
invited  to  meet  her  and  others  over  the  social  teacup. 
She  pleasantly  referred  to  his  many  wanderings  in 
his  new  occupation.  "  Yes,"  he  replied,  "  I  arn  like 
the  Huma,  the  bird  that  never  lights,  being  always 
in  the  cars,  as  he  is  always  on  the  wing." — Years 
elapsed.  The  lecturer  visited  the  same  place  once 
more  for  the  same  purpose.  Another  social  cup  after 
the  lecture,  and  a  second  meeting  with  the  distin- 
guished lady.  "  You  are  constantly  going  from  place 
to  place,"  she  said. — "  Yes,"  he  answered,  "  I  am  like 
the  Huma," — and  finished  the  sentence  as  before. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.     9 

What  horrors,  when  it  flashed  over  him  that  he 
had  made  this  fine  speech,  word  for  word,  twice  over ! 
Yet  it  was  not  true,  as  the  lady  might  perhaps  have 
fairly  inferred,  that  he  had  embellished  his  conversa- 
tion with  the  Huma  daily  during  that  whole  interval 
of  years.  On  the  contrary,  he  had  never  once  thought 
of  the  odious  fowl  until  the  recurrence  of  precisely 
the  same  circumstances  brought  up  precisely  the 
same  idea.  He  ought  to  have  been  proud  of  the 
accuracy  of  his  mental  adjustments.  Given  certain 
factors,  and  a  sound  brain  should  always  evolve  the 
same  fixed  product  with  the  certainty  of  Babbage's 
calculating  machine. 

What  a  satire,  by  the  way,  is  that  machine  on 

the  mere  mathematician  !  A  Frankenstein-monster, 
a  thing  without  brains  and  without  heart,  too  stupid 
to  make  a  blunder ;  that  turns  out  results  like  a  corn- 
sheller,  and  never  grows  any  wiser  or  better,  though 
it  grind  a  thousand  bushels  of  them ! 

I  have  an  immense  respect  for  a  man  of  talents 
plus  "  the  mathematics."  But  the  calculating  power 
alone  should  seem  to  be  the  least  human  of  qualities, 
and  to  have  the  smallest  amount  of  reason  in  it ; 
since  a  machine  can  be  made  to  do  the  work  of  three 
or  four  calculators,  and  better  than  any  one  of  them. 
Sometimes  I  have  been  troubled  that  I  had  not  a 
deeper  intuitive  apprehension  of  the  relations  of  num- 
bers. But  the  triumph  of  the  ciphering  hand-organ 
has  consoled  me.  I  always  fancy  I  can  hear  the 


10     THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

wheels  clicking  in  a  calculator's  brain.  The  power 
of  dealing  with  numbers  is  a  kind  of  "  detached  lever  " 
arrangement,  which  may  be  put  into  a  mighty  poor 
watch.  I  suppose  it  is  about  as  common  as  the 
power  of  moving  the  ears  voluntarily,  which  is  a 
moderately  rare  endowment. 

Little  localized  powers,  and  little  narrow 

streaks  of  specialized  knowledge,  are  things  men  are 
very  apt  to  be  conceited  about.  Nature  is  very  wise  ; 
but  for  this  encouraging  principle  how  many  small 
talents  and  little  accomplishments  would  be  neg- 
lected! Talk  about  conceit  as  much  as  you  like, 
it  is  to  human  character  what  salt  is  to  the  ocean ;  it 
keeps  it  sweet,  and  renders  it  endurable.  Say  rather 
it  is  like  the  natural  unguent  of  the  sea-fowl's  plu- 
mage, which  enables  him  to  shed  the  rain  that  falls 
on  him  and  the  wave  in  which  he  dips.  When  one 
has  had  all  his  conceit  taken  out  of  him,  when  he 
has  lost  all  his  illusions,  his  feathers  will  soon  soak 
through,  and  he  will  fly  no  more. 

"  So  you  admire  conceited  people,  do  you  ?  "  said 
the  young  lady  who  has  come  to  the  city  to  be  fin- 
ished off  for — the  duties  of  life. 

I  am  afraid  you  do  not  study  logic  at  your  school, 
my  dear.  It  does  not  follow  that  I  wish  to  be 
pickled  in  brine  because  I  like  a  salt-water  plunge  at 
Nahant.  I  say  that  conceit  is  just  as  natural  a  thing 
to  human  minds  as  a  centre  is  to  a  circle.  But 
little-minded  people's  thoughts  move  in  such  small 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    H 

circles  that  five  minutes'  conversation  gives  you  an 
arc  long  enough  to  determine  their  whole  curve.  An 
arc  in  the  movement  of  a  large  intellect  does  not 
sensibly  differ  from  a  straight  line.  Even  if  it  have 
the  third  vowel  as  its  centre,  it  does  not  soon  betray 
it.  The  highest  thought,  that  is,  is  the  most  seem- 
ingly impersonal ;  it  does  not  obviously  imply  any 
individual  centre. 

Audacious  self-esteem,  with  good  ground  for  it,  is 
always  imposing.  What  resplendent  beauty  that 
must  have  .been  which  could  have  authorized  Phryne 
to  "  peel  "  in  the  way  she  did !  What  fine  speeches 
are  those  two :  "  Non  omnis  moriar"  and  "  I  have 
taken  all  knowledge  to  be  my  province  " !  Even  in 
common  people,  conceit  has  the  virtue  of  making 
them  cheerful ;  the  man  who  thinks  his  wife,  his 
baby,  his  house,  his  horse,  his  dog,  and  himself  sev- 
erally unequalled,  is  almost  sure  to  be  a  good- 
humored  person,  though  liable  to  ^be  tedious  at 
times. 

What  are  the  great  faults  of  conversation  ? 

Want  of  ideas,  want  of  words,  want  of  manners,  are 
the  principal  ones,  I  suppose  you  think.  I  don't 
doubt  it,  but  I  will  tell  you  what  I  have  found  spoil 
more  good  talks  than  anything  else  ; — long  argu- 
ments on  special  points  between  people  who  differ 
on  the  fundamental  principles  upon  which  these 
points  depend.  No  men  can  have  satisfactory  re- 
lations with  each  other  until  they  have  agreed  on 


12    THE  AUTOCKAT  OF  THE  BEE AKFAST-T ABLE. 

certain  ultimata  of  belief  not  to  be  disturbed  in  or- 
dinary conversation,  and  unless  they  have  sense 
enough  to  trace  the  secondary  questions  depending 
upon  these  ultimate  beliefs  to  their  source.  In  short, 
just  as  a  written  constitution  is  essential  to  the  best 
social  order,  so  a  code  of  finalities  is  a  necessary  con- 
dition of  profitable  talk  between  two  persons.  Talk- 
ing is  like  playing  on  the  harp ;  there  is  as  much  in 
laying  the  hand  on  the  strings  to  stop  their  vibrations 
as  in  twanging  them  to  bring  out  their  music. 

Do  you  mean  to  say  the  pun-question  is  not 

clearly  settled  in  your  minds  ?  Let  me  lay  down  the 
law  upon  the  subject.  Life  and  language  are  alike 
sacred.  Homicide  and  verbicide — that  is,  violent 
treatment  of  a  word  with  fatal  results  to  its  legiti- 
mate meaning,  which  is  its  life — are  alike  forbidden. 
Manslaughter,  which  is  the  meaning  of  the  one,  is 
the  same  as  man's  laughter,  which  is  the  end  of  the 
other.  A  pun  js  primd  facie  an  insult  to  the  person 
you  are  talking  with.  It  implies  utter  indifference  to 
or  sublime  contempt  for  his  remarks,  no  matter  how 
serious.  I  speak  of  total  depravity,  and  one  says  all 
that  is  written  on  the  subject  is  deep  raving.  I  have 
committed  my  self-respect  by  talking  with  such  a 
person.  I  should  like  to  commit  him,  but  cannot, 
because  he  is  a  nuisance.  Or  I  speak  of  geological 
convulsions,  and  he  asks  me  what  was  the  cosine  of 
Noah's  ark ;  also,  whether  the  Deluge  was  not  a 
deal  huger  than  any  modern  inundation. 


THE  AUTOCEAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    13 

A  pun  does  not  commonly  justify  a  blow  in  return, 
But  if  a  blow  were  given  for  such  cause,  and  death 
ensued,  the  jury  would  be  judges  both  of  the  facts 
and  of  the  pun,  and  might,  if  the  latter  were  of  an 
aggravated  character,  return  a  verdict  of  justifiable 
homicide.  Thus,  in  a  case  lately  decided  before 
Miller,  J.,  Doe  presented  Roe  a  subscription  paper, 
and  urged  the  claims  of  suffering  humanity.  Roe 
replied  by  asking,  When  charity  was  like  a  top  ?  It 
was  in  evidence  that  Doe  preserved  a  dignified  si- 
lence. Roe  then  said,  "  When  it  begins  to  hum." 
Doe  then — and  not  till  then — struck  Roe,  and  his 
head  happening  to  hit  a  bound  volume  of  the 
Monthly  Rag-bag  and  Stolen  Miscellany,  intense 
mortification  ensued,  with  a  fatal  result.  The  chief 
laid  down  his  notions  of  the  law  to  his  brother  jus- 
tices, who  unanimously  replied,  "  Jest  so."  The 
chief  rejoined,  that  no  man  should  jest  so  without 
being  punished  for  it,  and  charged  for  the  prisoner, 
who  was  acquitted,  and  the  pun  ordered  to  be 
burned  by  the  sheriff.  The  bound  volume  was  for- 
feited as  a  deodand,  but  not  claimed. 

People  that  make  puns  are  like  wanton  boys  that 
put  coppers  on  the  railroad  tracks.  They  amuse 
themselves  and  other  children,  but  their  little  trick 
may  upset  a  freight  train  of  conversation  for  the 
sake  of  a  battered  witticism. 

I  will  thank  you,  B.  F.,  to  bring  down  two  books, 
of  which  I  will  mark  the  places  on  this  slip  of  paper. 


14    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

(While  he  is  gone,  I  may  say  that  this  boy,  our  land- 
lady's youngest,  is  called  BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN,  after 
the  celebrated  philosopher  of  that  name.  A  highly 
merited  compliment.) 

I  wished  to  refer  to  two  eminent  authorities. 
Now  be  so  good  as  to  listen.  The  great  moralist 
says :  "  To  trifle  with  the  vocabulary  which  is  the 
vehicle  of  social  intercourse  is  to  tamper  with  the 
currency  of  human  intelligence.  He  who  would 
violate  the  sanctities  of  his  mother  tongue  would  in- 
vade the  recesses  of  the  paternal  till  without  remorse, 
and  repeat  the  banquet  of  Saturn  without  an  indi- 
gestion." 

And,  once  more,  listen  to  the  historian.  "  The  Pu- 
ritans hated  puns.  The  Bishops  were  notoriously 
addicted  to  them.  The  Lords  Temporal  carried 
them  to  the  verge  of  license.  Majesty  itself  must 
have  its  Royal  quibble.  '  Ye  be  burly,  my  Lord  of 
Burleigh,'  said  Queen  Elizabeth,  '  but  ye  shall  make 
less  stir  in  our  realm  than  my  Lord  of  Leicester.' 
The  gravest  wisdom  and  the  highest  breeding  lent 
their  sanction  to  the  practice.  Lord  Bacon  playfully 
declared  himself  a  descendant  of  'Og,  the  King  of 
Bashan.  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  with  his  last  breath, 
reproached  the  soldier  who  brought  him  water,  for 
wasting  a  casque  full  upon  a  dying  man.  A  courtier, 
who  saw  Othello  performed  at  the  Globe  Theatre, 
remarked,  that  the  blackamoor  wa&  a  brute,  and  not 
a  man.  *  Thou  hast  reason/  replied  a  great  Lord, 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    15 

'according  to  Plato  his  saying;  for  this  be  a  two- 
legged  animal  with  feathers.'  The  fatal  habit  be- 
came universal.  The  language  was  corrupted.  The 
infection  spread  to  the  national  conscience.  Political 
double-dealings  naturally  grew  out  of  verbal  double 
meanings.  The  teeth  of  the  new  dragon  were  sown 
by  the  Cadmus  who  introduced  the  alphabet  of 
equivocation.  What  was  levity  in  the  time  of  the 
Tudors  grew  to  regicide  and  revolution  in  the  age 
of  the  Stuarts." 

Who  was  that  boarder  that  just  whispered  some- 
thing about  the  Macaulay-flowers  of  literature  ? — 
There  was  a  dead  silence. — I  said  calmly,  I  shall 
henceforth  consider  any  interruption  by  a  pun  as  a 
hint  to  change  my  boarding-house.  Do  not  plead  my 
example.  If  J  have  used  any  such,  it  has  been  only 
as  a  Spartan  father  would  show  up  a  drunken  helot. 
We  have  done  with  them. 

If  a  logical  mind  ever  found  out  anything 

with  its  logic  ? — I  should  say  that  its  most  frequent 
work  was  to  build  a  pons  asinorum  over  chasms  which 
shrewd  people  can  bestride  without  such  a  structure. 
You  can  hire  logic,  in  the  shape  of  a  lawyer,  to 
prove  anything  that  you  want  to  prove.  You  can 
buy  treatises  to  show  that  Napoleon  never  lived,  and 
that  no  battle  of  Bunker-hill  was  ever  fought.  The 
great  minds  are  those  with  a  wide  span,  which  couple 
truths  related  to,  but  far  removed  from,  each  other. 
Logicians  carry  the  surveyor's  chain  over  the  track 


16     THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

of  which  these  are  the  true  explorers.  I  value  a  man 
mainly  for  his  primary  relations  with  truth,  as  I  un- 
derstand truth, — not  for  any  secondary  artifice  in 
handling  his  ideas.  Some  of  the  sharpest  men  in 
argument  are  notoriously  unsound  in  judgment.  I 
should  not  trust  the  counsel  of  a  smart  debater,  any 
more  than  that  of  a  good  chess-player.  Either  may 
of  course  advise  wisely,  but  not  necessarily  because 
he  wrangles  or  plays  well. 

The  old  gentleman  who  sits  opposite  got  his  hand 
up,  as  a  pointer  lifts  his  forefoot,  at  the  expression, 
"  his  relations  with  truth,  as  I  understand  truth,"  and 
when  I  had  done,  sniffed  audibly,  and  said  I  talked 
like  a  transcendentalist.  For  his  part,  common  sense 
was  good  enough  for  him. 

Precisely  so,  my  dear  sir,  I  replied  ;  common  sense, 
as  you  understand  it.  We  all  have  to  assume  a 
standard  of  judgment  in  our  own  minds,  either  of 
things  or  persons.  A  man  who  is  willing  to  take 
another's  opinion  has  to  exercise  his  judgment  in  the 
choice  of  whom  to  follow,  which  is  often  as  nice  a 
matter  as  to  judge  of  things  for  one's  self.  On  the 
whole,  I  had  rather  judge  men's  minds  by  comparing 
their  thoughts  with  my  own,  than  judge  of  thoughts 
by  knowing  who  utter  them.  I  must  do  one  or  the 
other.  It  does  not  follow,  of  course,  that  I  may  not 
recognize  another  man's  thoughts  as  broader  and 
deeper  than  my  own ;  but  that  does  not  necessarily 
change  my  opinion,  otherwise  this  would  be  at  the 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    17 

mercy  of  every  superior  mind  that  held  a  different 
one.  How  many  of  our  most  cherished  beliefs  are 
like  those  drinking-glasses  of  the  ancient  pattern, 
that  serve  us  well  so  long  as  we  keep  them  in  our 
hand,  but  spill  all  if  we  attempt  to  set  them  down ! 
I  have  sometimes  compared  conversation  to  the 
Italian  game  of  mora,  in  which  one  player  lifts  his 
hand  with  so  many  fingers  extended,  and  the  other 
gives  the  number  if  he  can.  I  show  my  thought, 
another  his;  if  they  agree,  well;  if  they  differ,  we 
find  the  largest  common  factor,  if  we  can,  but  at  any 
rate  avoid  disputing  about  remainders  and  fractions, 
which  is  to  real  talk  what  tuning  an  instrument  is  to 
playing  on  it. 

What  if,  instead  of  talking  this  morning,  I 

should  read  you  a  copy  of  verses,  with  critical 
remarks  by  the  author  ?  Any  of  the  company  can 
retire  that  like. 

ALBUM   VERSES. 

When  Eve  had  led  her  lord  away, 

And  Cain  had  killed  his  brother, 
The  stars  and  flowers,  the  poets  say, 

Agreed  with  one  another 

To  cheat  the  cunning  tempter's  art, 

And  teach  the  race  its  duty, 
By  keeping  on  its  wicked  heart 

Their  eyes  of  light  and  beauty. 
2 


18    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

A  million  sleepless  lids,  they  say, 

Will  be  at  least  a  warning ; 
And  so  the  flowers  would  watch  by  day, 

The  stars  from  eve  to  morning. 

On  hill  and  prairie,  field  and  lawn, 

Their  dewy  eyes  upturning, 
The  flowers  still  watch  from  reddening  dawn 

Till  western  skies  are  burning. 

Alas !  each  hour  of  daylight  tells 

A  tale  of  shame  so  crushing, 
That  some  turn  white  as  sea-bleached  shells, 

And  some  are  always  blushing. 

But  when  the  patient  stars  look  down 

On  all  their  light  discovers, 
The  traitor's  smile,  the  murderer's  frown, 

The  lips  of  lying  lovers, 

They  try  to  shut  their  saddening  eyes, 

And  in  the  vain  endeavour 
We  see  them  twinkling  in  the  skies, 

And  so  they  wink  forever. 

What  do  you  think  of  these  verses  my  friends? — • 
Is  that  piece  an  impromptu?  said  my  landlady's 
daughter.  (Aet.  19  -K  Tender-eyed  blonde.  Long 
ringlets.  Cameo  pin.  Gold  pencil-case  on  a  chain. 
Locket.  Bracelet.  Album.  Autograph  book.  Ao 
cordeon.  Reads  Byron,  Tupper,  and  Sylvanus  Cobb, 
junior,  while  her  mother  makes  the  puddings.  Says, 
"Yes?"  when  you  tell  her  anything.) — Oui  et  nont 


THE 


LANDLADY' 


20     THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

commended.  "  Madam,"  I  said,  "  you  can  pour  three 
gills  and  three  quarters  of  honey  from  that  pint  jug, 
if  it  is  full,  in  less  than  one  minute  ;  but,  Madam,  you 
could  not  empty  that  last  quarter  of  a  gill,  though  you 
were  turned  into  a  marble  Hebe,  and  held  the  vessel 
upside  down  for  a  thousand  years. 

One  gets  tired  to  death  of  the  old,  old  rhymes, 
such  as  you  see  in  that  copy  of  verses, — which  I 
don't  mean  to  abuse,  or  to  praise  either.  I  always 
feel  as  if  I  were  a  cobbler,  putting  new  top-leathers 
to  an  old  pair  of  boot-soles  and  bodies,  when  I  am 
fitting  sentiments  to  these  venerable  jingles. 

•  •  •  .  youth 

,  .  .  morning 

.  truth 


Nine  tenths  of  the  "  Juvenile  Poems "  written 
spring  out  of  the  above  musical  and  suggestive  co- 
incidences. 

"  Yes  ?  "  said  our  landlady's  daughter. 

I  did  not  address  the  following  remark  to  her,  and 
I  trust,  from  her  limited  range  of  reading,  she  will 
never  see  it;  I  said  it  softly  to  my  next  neighbour. 

When  a  young  female  wears  a  flat  circular  side- 
curl,  gummed  on  each  temple, — when  she  walks 
with  a  male,  not  arm  in  arm,  but  his  arm  against 
the  back  of  hers, — and  when  she  says  "  Yes  ?  "  with 
the  note  of  interrogation,  you  are  generally  safe  in 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    21 

asking  her  what  wages  she  gets,  and  who  the  "  feller" 
was  you  saw  her  with. 

"  What  were  you  whispering  ?  "  said  the  daughter 
of  the  house,  moistening  her  lips,  as  she  spoke,  in  a 
very  engaging  manner. 

"  I  was  only  laying  down  a  principle  of  social 
diagnosis." 

«  Yes  ?  " 

It  is  curious  to  see  how  the  same  wants  and 

tastes  find  the  same  implements  and  modes  of  ex- 
pression in  all  times  and  places.  The  young  ladies 
of  Otaheite,  as  you  may  see  in  Cook's  Voyages,  had 
a  sort  of  crinoline  arrangement  fully  equal  in  radius 
to  the  largest  spread  of  our  own  lady-baskets.  When 
I  fling  a  Bay- State  shawl  over  my  shoulders,  I  am 
only  taking  a  lesson  from  the  climate  that  the  Indian 
had  learned  before  me.  A  blanket-shawl  we  call  it, 
and  not  a  plaid ;  and  we  wear  it  like  the  aborigines, 
and  not  like  the  Highlanders. 

We  are  the  Romans  of  the  modern  world, — 

the  great  assimilating  people.  Conflicts  and  con- 
quests are  of  course  necessary  accidents  with  us,  as 
with  our  prototypes.  And  so  we  come  to  their  style 
of  weapon.  Our  army  sword  is  the  short,  stiff, 
pointed  gladius  of  the  Romans ;  and  the  American 
bowie-knife  is  the  same  tool,  modified  to  meet  the 
daily  wants  of  civil  society.  I  announce  at  this 
table  an  axiom  not  to  be  found  in  Montesquieu  or 
the  journals  of  Congress  : — 


22    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

The  race  that  shortens  its  weapons  lengthens  its 
boundaries. 

Corollary.  It  was  the  Polish  lance  that  left  Poland 
at  last  with  nothing  of  her  own  to  bound. 

"  Dropped  from  her  nerveless  grasp  the  shattered  spear  I " 

What  business  had  Sarmatia  to  be  righting  for 
liberty  with  a  fifteen-foot  pole  between  her  and  the 
breasts  of  her  enemies  ?  If  she  had  but  clutched 
the  old  Roman  and  young  American  weapon,  and 
come  to  close  quarters,  there  might  have  been  a 
chance  for  her ;  but  it  would  have  spoiled  the  best 
passage  in  "  The  Pleasures  of  Hope." 

Self-made  men  ? — Well,  yes.  Of  course  every 

body  likes  and  respects  self-made  men.  It  is  a  great 
deal  better  to  be  made  in  that  way  than  not  to  be 
made  at  all.  Are  any  of  you  younger  people  old 
enough  to  remember  that  Irishman's  house  on  the 
marsh  at  Cambridgeport,  which  house  he  built  from 
drain  to  chimney-top  with  his  own  hands  ?  It  took 
him  a  good  many  years  to  build  it,  and  one  could 
see  that  it  was  a  little  out  of  plumb,  and  a  little 
wavy  in  outline,  and  a  Little  queer  and  uncertain  in 
general  aspect.  A  regular  hand  could  certainly  have 
built  a  better  house ;  but  it  was  a  very  good  house 
for  a  "  self-made "  carpenter's  house,  and  people 
praised  it,  and  said  how  remarkably  well  the  Irish- 
man had  succeeded.  They  never  thought  of  prais- 
ing the  fine  blocks  of  houses  a  little  farther  on. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    23 

Your  self-made  man,  whittled  into  shape  with  his 
own  jack-knife,  deserves  more  credit,  if  that  is  all, 
than  the  regular  engine-turned  article,  shaped  by  the 
most  approved  pattern,  and  French-polished  by  so- 
ciety and  travel.  But  as  to  saying  that  one  is  every 
way  the  equal  of  the  other,  that  is  another  matter. 
The  right  of  strict  social  discrimination  of  all  things 
and  persons,  according  to  their  merits,  native  or  ac- 
quired, is  one  of  the  most  precious  republican  privi- 
leges. I  take  the  liberty  to  exercise  it,  when  I  say, 
that,  other  things  being  equal,  in  most  relations  of 
life  I  prefer  a  man  of  family. 

What  do  I  mean  by  a  man  of  family  ? — O,  I'll 
give  you  a  general  idea  of  what  I  mean.  Let  us 
give  him  a  first-rate  fit  out ;  it  costs  us  nothing. 

Four  or  five  generations  of  gentlemen  and  gentle- 
women; among  them  a  member  of  his  Majesty's 
Council  for  the  Province,  a  Governor  or  so,  one  or 
two  Doctors  of  Divinity,  a  member  of  Congress,  not 
later  than  the  time  of  top-boots  with  tassels. 

Family  portraits.  The  member  of  the  Council, 
by  Smibert.  The  great  merchant-uncle,  by  Copley, 
full  length,  sitting  in  his  arm-chair,  in  a  velvet  cap 
and  flowered  robe,  with  a  globe  by  him,  to  show  the 
range  of  his  commercial  transactions,  and  letters  with 
large  red  seals  lying  round,  one  directed  conspicu- 
ously to  The  Honourable  etc.  etc.  Great-grand- 
mother, by  the  same  artist ;  brown  satin,  lace  very 
fine,  hands  superlative ;  grand  old  lady,  stiffish,  but 


24    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

imposing.  Her  mother,  artist  unknown;  flat,  an- 
gular, hanging  sleeves;  parrot  on  fist.  A  pair  of 
Stuarts,  viz.,  1.  A  superb  full-blown,  mediaeval  gen- 
tleman, with  a  fiery  dash  of  Tory  blood  in  his  veins, 
tempered  down  with  that  of  a  fine  old  rebel  grand- 
mother, and  warmed  up  with  the  best  of  old  India 
Madeira ;  his  face  is  one  flame  of  ruddy  sunshine  ; 
his  ruffled  shirt  rushes  out  of  his  bosom  with  an  im- 
petuous generosity,  as  if  it  would  drag  his  heart 
after  it ;  and  his  smile  is  good  for  twenty  thousand 
dollars  to  the  Hospital,  besides  ample  bequests  to  all 
relatives  and  dependants.  2.  Lady  of  the  same; 
remarkable  cap ;  high  waist,  as  in  time  of  Empire ; 
bust  d  la  Josephine;  wisps  of  curls,  like  celery -tips, 
at  sides  of  forehead ;  complexion  clear  and  warm, 
like  rose-cordial.  As  for  the  miniatures  by  Malbone, 
we  don't  count  them  in  the  gallery. 

Books,  too,  with  the  names  of  old  college-students 
in  them, — family  names ; — you  will  find  them  at  the 
head  of  their  respective  classes  in  the  days  when  stu- 
dents took  rank  on  the  catalogue  from  their  parents' 
condition.  Elzevirs,  with  the  Latinized  appellations 
of  youthful  progenitors,  and  Hie  liber  est  meus  on 
the  title-page.  A  set  of  Hogarth's  original  plates. 
Pope,  original  edition,  15  volumes,  London'  1717. 
Barrow  on  the  lower  shelves,  in  folio.  Tillotson 
on  the  upper,  in  a  little  dark  platoon  of  octo-dec- 
imos. 

Some  family  silver ;  a  string  of  wedding  and  fune- 


THE   AUTOCRAT   OF   THE   BREAKFAST-TABLE.  go 

ral  rings ;  the  arms  of  the  family  curiously  blazoned  ; 
the  same  in  worsted,  by  a  maiden  aunt. 

If  the  man  of  family  has  an  old  place  to  keep 
these  things  in,  furnished  with  claw-footed  chairs 
and  black  mahogany  tables,  and  tall  bevel-edged 
mirrors,  and  stately  upright  cabinets,  his  outfit  is 
complete. 

No,  my  friends,  I  go  (always,  other  things  being 
equal)  for  the  man  who  inherits  family  traditions 
and  the  cumulative  humanities  of  at  least  four  or 
five  generations.  Above  all  things,  as  a  child,  he 
should  have  tumbled  about  in  a  library.  All  men 
are  afraid  of  books,  who  have  not  handled  them 
from  infancy.  Do  you  suppose  our  dear  didascalos 
over  there  ever  read  Poll  Synopsis,  or  consulted  Cas- 
telli  Lexicon,  while  he  was  growing  up  to  their  stat- 
ure ?  Not  he ;  but  virtue  passed  through  the  hem 
of  their  parchment  and  leather  garments  whenever 
he  touched  them,  as  the  precious  drugs  sweated 
through  the  bat's  handle  in  the  Arabian  story.  I 
tell  you  he  is  at  home  wherever  he  smells  the  invig- 
orating fragrance  of  Russia  leather.  No  self-made 
man  feels  so.  One  may,  it  is  true,  have  all  the  an- 
tecedents I  have  spoken  of,  and  yet  be  a  boor  or  a 
shabby  fellow.  One  may  have  none  of  them,  and 
yet  be  fit  for  councils  and  courts.  Then  let  them 
change  places.  Our  social  arrangement  has  this 
great  beauty,  that  its  strata  shift  up  and  down  as 
they  change  specific  gravity,  without  being  clogged 


26    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

by  layers  of  prescription.  But  I  still  insist  on  my 
democratic  liberty  of  choice,  and  I  go  for  the  man 
with  the  gallery  of  family  portraits  against  the  one 
with  the  twenty-five-cent  daguerreotype,  unless  I 
find  out  that  the  last  is  the  better  of  the  two. 

1  should   have  felt  more  nervous  about   the 

late  comet,  if  I  had  thought  the  world  was  ripe.  But 
it  is  very  green  yet,  if  I  am  not  mistaken ;  and  be- 
sides, there  is  a  great  deal  of  coal  to  use  up,  which  I 
cannot  bring  myself  to  think  was  made  for  nothing. 
If  certain  things,  which  seem  to  me  essential  to  a 
millennium,  had  come  to  pass,  I  should  have  been 
frightened ;  but  they  haven't.  Perhaps  you  would 
like  to  hear  my 

LATTEll-DAY  WARNINGS. 

When  legislators  keep  the  law, 

When  banks  dispense  with  bolts  and  locks, 

When  berries,  whortle — rasp — and  straw — 
Grow  bigger  downwards  through  the  box, — 

When  he  that  selleth  house  or  land 
Shows  leak  in  roof  or  flaw  in  right, — 

When  haberdashers  choose  the  stand 

Whose  window  hath  the  broadest  light, — 

When  preachers  tell  us  all  they  think, 

And  party  leaders  all  they  mean, — 
When  what  we  pay  for,  that  we  drink, 

From  real  grape  and  coffee-bean, — 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    £7 

When  lawyers  take  what  they  would  give, 
And  doctors  give  what  they  would  take, — 

When  city  fathers  eat  to  live, 

Save  when  they  fast  for  conscience*  sake, — 

When  one  that  hath  a  horse  on  sale 

Shall  bring  his  merit  to  the  proof, 
Without  a  lie  for  every  nail 

That  holds  the  iron  on  the  hoof,— 

When  in  the  usual  place  for  rips 

Our  gloves  are  stitched  with  special  care, 

And  guarded  well  the  whalebone  tips 
Where  first  umbrellas  need  repair, — 

When  Cuba's  weeds  have  quite  forgot 

The  power  of  suction  to  resist, 
And  claret-bottles  harbor  not 

Such  dimples  as  would  hold  your  fist,— 

When  publishers  no  longer  steal, 

And  pay  for  what  they  stole  before, — 
When  the  first  locomotive's  wheel 

Rolls  through  the  Hoosac  tunnel's  bore  ;— 

Till  then  let  Gumming  blaze  away, 

And  Miller's  saints  blow  up  the  globe ; 
But  when  you  see  that  blessed  day, 

Then  order  your  ascension  robe  1 


The  company  seemed  to  like  the  verses,  and  I 
promised  them  to  read  others  occasionally,  if  they 
had  a  mind  to  hear  them.  Of  course  they  would 


28    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

not  expect  it  every  morning.  Neither  must  the  reader 
suppose  that  all  these  things  I  have  reported  were 
said  at  any  one  breakfast-time.  I  have  not  taken  the 
trouble  to  date  them,  as  Raspail,  pere,  used  to  date 
every  proof  he  sent  to  the  printer ;  but  they  were 
scattered  over  several  breakfasts  ;  and  I  have  said  a 
good  many  more  things  since,  which  I  shall  very 
possibly  print  some  time  or  other,  if  I  am  urged  to 
do  it  by  judicious  friends. 

I  finished  off  with  reading  some  verses  of  my  friend 
the  Professor,  of  whom  you  may  perhaps  hear  more 
by  and  by.  The  Professor  read  them,  he  told  me,  at 
a  farewell  meeting,  where  the  youngest  of  our  great 
Historians  met  a  few  of  his  many  friends  at  their 
invitation. 


YES,  we  knew  we  must  lose  him, — though  friendship  may  claim 
To  blend  her  green  leaves  with  the  laurels  of  fame  ; 
Though  fondly,  at  parting,  we  call  him  our  own, 
'Tis  the  whisper  of  love  when  the  bugle  has  blown. 

As  the  rider  that  rests  with  the  spur  on  his  heel, — 
As  the  guardsman  that  sleeps  in  his  corselet  of  steel, — 
As  the  archer  that  stands  with  his  shaft  on  the  string, 
He  stoops  from  his  toil  to  the  garland  we  bring. 

What  pictures  yet  slumber  unborn  in  his  loom 

Till  their  warriors  shall  breathe  and  their  beauties  shall  bloom, 

While  the  tapestry  lengthens  the  life-glowing  dyes 

That  caught  from  our  sunsets  the  stain  of  their  skies ! 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.     29 

In  the  alcoves  of  death,  in  the  charnels  of  time, 
Where  flit  the  gaunt  spectres  of  passion  and  crime, 
There  are  triumphs  untold,  there  are  martyrs  unsung, 
There  are  heroes  yet  silent  to  speak  with  his  tongue ! 

Let  us  hear  the  proud  story  which  time  has  bequeathed 

From  lips  that  are  warm  with  the  freedom  they  breathed ! 

Let  him  summon  its  tyrants,  and  tell  us  their  doom, 

Though  he  sweep  the  black  past  like  Van  Tromp  with  his  broom  ! 


The  dream  flashes  by,  for  the  west- winds  awake 
On  pampas,  on  prairie,  o'er  mountain  and  lake, 
To  bathe  the  swift  bark,  like  a  sea-girdled  shrine, 
With  incense  they  stole  from  the  rose  and  the  pine. 

So  fill  a  bright  cup  with  the  sunlight  that  gushed 
When  the  dead  summer's  jewels  were  trampled  and  crushed : 
THE  TRUE  KNIGHT  OF  LEARNING, — the  world  holds  him  dear, 
Love  bless  him,  Joy  crown  him,  God  speed  his  career ! 


II. 

I  REALLY  believe  some  people  save  their  bright 
thoughts,  as  being  too  precious  for  conversation. 
What  do  you  think  an  admiring  friend  said  the 
other  day  to  one  that  was  talking  good  things, — 
good  enough  to  print  ?  "  Why,"  said  he,  "  you  are 
wasting  mechantable  literature,  a  cash  article,  at 
the  rate,  as  nearly  as  I  can  tell,  of  fifty  dollars  an 


30     THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

hour."  The  talker  took  him  to  the  window  and 
asked  him  to  look  out  and  tell  what  he  saw. 

"  Nothing  but  a  very  dusty  street,"  he  said,  "  and 
a  man  driving  a  sprinkling-machine  through  it." 

"  Why  don't  you  tell  the  man  he  is  wasting  that 
water  ?  What  would  be  the  state  of  the  highways 
of  life,  if  we  did  not  drive  our  thought-sprinklers 
through  them  with  the  valves  open,  sometimes  ? 

"  Besides,  there  is  another  thing  about  this  talking, 
which  you  forget.  It  shapes  our  thoughts  for  us  ; — 
the  waves  of  conversation  roll  them  as  the  surf  rolls 
the  pebbles  on  the  shore.  Let  me  modify  the  image 
a  little.  I  rough  out  my  thoughts  in  talk  as  an  artist 
models  in  clay.  Spoken  language  is  so  plastic, — 
you  can  pat  and  coax,  and  spread  and  shave,  and 
rub  out,  and  fill  up,  and  stick  on  so  easily,  when 
you  work  that  soft  material,  that  there  is  nothing 
like  it  for  modelling.  Out  of  it  come  the  shapes 
which  you  turn  into  marble  or  bronze  in  your  im- 
mortal books,  if  you  happen  to  write  such.  Or,  to 
use  another  illustration,  writing  or  printing  is  like 
shooting  with  a  rifle;  you  may  hit  your  reader's 
mind,  or  miss  it ; — but  talking  is  like  playing  at  a 
mark  with  the  pipe  of  an  engine ;  if  it  is  within 
reach,  and  you  have  time  enough,  you  can't  help  hit- 
ting it." 

The  company  agreed  that  this  last  illustration  was 
of  superior  excellence,  or,  in  the  phrase  used  by  them, 
"  Fust-rate."  I  acknowledged  the  compliment,  but 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  '   31 

gently  rebuked  the  expression.  "  Fast-rate,"  "  prime," 
"a  prime  article,"  "  a  superior  piece  of  goods,"  "a 
handsome  garment,"  "  a  gent  in  a  flowered  vest," — 
all  such  expressions  are  final.  They  blast  the  lineage 
of  him  or  her  who  utters  them,  for  generations  up 
and  down.  There  is  one  other  phrase  which  will 
soon  come  to  be  decisive  of  a  man's  social  status,  if 
it  is  not  already :  "  That  tells  the  whole  story."  It 
is  an  expression  which  vulgar  and  conceited  people 
particularly  affect,  and  which  well-meaning  ones,  who 
know  better,  catch  from  them.  It  is  intended  to 
stop  all  debate,  like  the  previous  question  in  the 
General  Court.  Only  it  doesn't;  simply  because 
"that"  does  not  usually  tell  the  whole,  nor  one  half 
of  the  whole  story. 

It  is  an  odd  idea,  that  almost  all  our  people 

have  had  a  professional  education.  To  become  a 
doctor  a  man  must  study  some  three  years  and  hear 
a  thousand  lectures,  more  or  less.  Just  how  much 
study  it  takes  to  make  a  lawyer  I  cannot  say,  but 
probably  not  more  than  this.  Now  most  decent 
people  hear  one  hundred  lectures  or  sermons  (dis- 
courses) on  theology  every  year, — and  this,  twenty, 
thirty,  fifty  years  together.  They  read  a  great  many 
religious  books  besides.  The  clergy,  however,  rarely 
hear  any  sermons  except  what  they  preach  them- 
selves. A  dull  preacher  might  be  conceived,  there- 
fore, to  lapse  into  a  state  of  quasi  heathenism,  simply 
for  want  of  religious  instruction.  And  on  the  other 


32    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

hand,  an  attentive  and  intelligent  hearer,  listening  to 
a  succession  of  wise  teachers,  might  become  actually 
better  educated  in  theology  than  any  one  of  them. 
We  are  all  theological  students,  and  more  of  us  qual- 
ified as  doctors  of  divinity  than  have  received  de- 
grees at  any  of  the  universities. 

It  is  not  strange,  therefore,  that  very  good  people 
should  often  find  it  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  keep 
their  attention  fixed  upon  a  sermon  treating  feebly  a 
subject  which  they  have  thought  vigorously  about  for 
years,  and  heard  able  men  discuss  scores  of  times.  I 
have  often  noticed,  however,  that  a  hopelessly  dull  dis- 
course acts  inductively -,  as  electricians  would  say,  in 
developing  strong  mental  currents.  I  am  ashamed 
to  think  with  what  accompaniments  and  variations 
and  fioriture  I  have  sometimes  followed  the  droning 
of  a  heavy  speaker, — not  willingly, — for  my  habit  is 
reverential, — but  as  a  necessary  result  of  a  slight  con- 
tinuous impression  on  the  senses  and  the  mind,  which 
kept  both  in  action  without  furnishing  the  food  they 
required  to  work  upon.  If  you  ever  saw  a  crow  with 
a  king-bird  after  him,  you  will  get  an  image  of  a  dull 
speaker  and  a  lively  listener.  The  bird  in  sable  plum- 
age flaps  heavily  along  his  straight-forward  course, 
while  the  other  sails  round  him,  over  him,  under  him, 
leaves  him,  comes  back  again,  twreaks  out  a  black 
feather,  shoots  away  once  more,  never  losing  sight 
of  him,  and  finally  reaches  the  crow's  perch  at  the 
same  time  the  crow  does,  having  cut  a  perfect  laby- 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    33 

rinth  of  loops  and  knots  and  spirals  while  the  slow 
fowl  was  painfully  working  from  one  end  of  his 
straight  line  to  the  other. 

[I  think  these  remarks  were  received  rather  coolly. 
A  temporary  boarder  from  the  country,  consisting  of 
a  somewhat  more  than  middle-aged  female,  with  a 
parchment  forehead  and  a  dry  little  "  frisette  "  shin- 
gling it,  a  sallow  neck  with  a  necklace  of  gold  beads, 
a  black  dress  too  rusty  for  recent  grief  and  contours 
in  basso-rilievo,  left  the  table  prematurely,  and  was 
reported  to  have  been  very  virulent  about  what  I 
said.  So  I  went  to  my  good  old  minister,  and  re- 
peated the  remarks,  as  nearly  as  I  could  remember 
them,  to  him.  He  laughed  good-naturedly,  and  said 
there  was  considerable  truth  in  them.  He  thought 
he  could  tell  when  people's  minds  were  wandering, 
by  their  looks.  In  the  earlier  years  of  his  ministry 
he  had  sometimes  noticed  this,  when  he  was  preach- 
ing ; — very  little  of  late  years.  Sometimes,  when  his 
colleague  was  preaching,  he  observed  this  kind  of 
inattention;  but  after  all,  it  was  not  so  very  un- 
natural. I  will  say,  by  the  way,  that  it  is  a  rule  I 
have  long  followed,  to  tell  my  worst  thoughts  to  my 
minister,  and  my  best  thoughts  to  the  young  people 
I  talk  with.] 

-I  want  to  make  a  literary  confession  now, 

which  I  believe  nobody  has  made  before  me.  You 
know  very  well  that  I  write  verses  sometimes,  be- 
cause I  have  read  some  of  them  at  this  table.  (The 

2* 


34    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

company  assented, — two  or  three  of  them  in  a  re- 
signed sort  of  way,  as  I  thought,  as  if  they  supposed 
I  had  an  epic  in  my  pocket,  and  was  going  to  read 
half  a  dozen  books  or  so  for  their  benefit.) — I  con- 
tinued. Of  course  I  write  some  lines  or  passages 
which  are  better  than  others ;  some  which,  compared 
with  the  others,  might  be  called  relatively  excellent. 
It  is  in  the  nature  of  things  that  I  should  consider 
these  relatively  excellent  lines  or  passages  as  abso- 
lutely good.  So  much  must  be  pardoned  to  human- 
ity. Now  I  never  wrote  a  "  good  "  line  in  my  life, 
but  the  moment  after  it  was  written  it  seemed  a 
hundred  years  old.  Very  commonly  I  had  a  sudden 
conviction  that  I  had  seen  it  somewhere.  Possibly  I 
may  have  sometimes  unconsciously  stolen  it,  but  I 
do  not  remember  that  I  ever  once  detected  any  his- 
torical truth  in  these  sudden  convictions  of  the  an- 
tiquity of  my  new  thought  or  phrase.  I  have  learned 
utterly  to  distrust  them,  and  never  allow  them  to 
bully  me  out  of  a  thought  or  line. 

This  is  the  philosophy  of  it.  (Here  the  number 
of  the  company  was  diminished  by  a  small  seces- 
*sion.)  Any  new  formula  which  suddenly  emerges 
in  our  consciousness  has  its  roots  in  long  trains  of 
thought;  it  is  virtually  old  when  it  first  makes  its 
appearance  among  the  recognized  growths  of  our 
intellect.  Any  crystalline  group  of  musical  words 
has  had  a  long  and  still  period  to  form  in.  Here  is 
one  theory. 


THE   BCHOOLMISTBESS. 


THE  AUTOCBAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    35 

But  there  is  a  larger  law  which  perhaps  compre- 
hends these  facts.  It  is  this.  The  rapidity  with 
which  ideas  grow  old  in  our  memories  is  in  a  direct 
ratio  to  the  squares  of  their  importance.  Their  ap- 
parent age  runs  up  miraculously,  like  the  value  of 
diamonds,  as  they  increase  in  magnitude.  A  great 
calamity,  for  instance,  is  as  old  as  the  trilobites  an 
hour  after  it  has  happened.  It  stains  backward 
through  all  the  leaves  we  have  turned  over  in  the 
book  of  life,  before  its  blot  of  tears  or  of  blood  is  dry 
on  the  page  we  are  turning.  For  this  we  seem  to 
have  lived ;  it  was  foreshadowed  in  dreams  that  we 
leaped  out  of  in  the  cold  sweat  of  terror ;  in  the 
"  dissolving  views  "  of  dark  day-visions ;  all  omens 
pointed  to  it ;  all  paths  led  to  it  After  the  tossing 
half-forgetfulness  of  the  first  sleep  that  follows  such 
an  event,  it  comes  upon  us  afresh,  as  a  surprise,  at 
waking ;  in  a  few  moments  it  is  old  again, — old  as 
eternity. 

[I  wish  I  had  not  said  all  this  then  and  there.  I 
might  have  known  better.  The  pale  schoolmistress, 
in  her  mourning  dress,  was  looking  at  me,  as  I  no- 
ticed, with  a  wild  sort  of  expression.  All  at  once 
the  blood  dropped  out  of  her  cheeks  as  the  mercury 
drops  from  a  broken  barometer-tube,  and  she  melted 
away  from  her  seat  like  an  image  of  snow  ;  a  slang- 
shot  could  not  have  brought  her  down  better.  God 
forgive  me ! 

After  this  little  episode,  I  continued,  to  some  few 


36     THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

that  remained  balancing  teaspoons  on  the  edges  of 
cups,  twirling  knives,  or  tilting  upon  the  hind  legs  of 
their  chairs  until  their  heads  reached  the  wall,  where 
they  left  gratuitous  advertisements  of  various  popu- 
lar cosmetics.] 

When  a  person  is  suddenly  thrust  into  any  strange, 
new  position  of  trial,  he  finds  the  place  fits  him  as 
if  he  had  been  measured  for  it.  He  has  committed 
a  great  crime,  for  instance,  and  is  sent  to  the  State 
Prison.  The  traditions,  prescriptions,  limitations, 
privileges,  all  the  sharp  conditions  of  his  new  life, 
stamp  themselves  upon  his  consciousness  as  the 
signet  on  soft  wax  ; — a  single  pressure  is  enough. 
Let  me  strengthen  the  image  a  little.  Did  you  ever 
happen  to  see  that  most  soft-spoken  and  velvet- 
handed  steam-engine  at  the  Mint?  The  smooth 
piston  slides  backward  and  forward  as  a  lady  might 
slip  her  delicate  finger  in  and  out  of  a  ring.  The 
engine  lays  one  of  its  fingers  calmly,  but  firmly,  upon 
a  bit  of  metal ;  it  is  a  coin  now,  and  will  remember 
that  touch,  and  tell  a  new  race  about  it,  when  the 
date  upon  it  is  crusted  over  with  twenty  centuries. 
So  it  is  that  a  great  silent-moving  misery  puts  a  new 
stamp  on  us  in  an  hour  or  a  moment, — as  sharp  an 
impression  as  if  it  had  taken  half  a  lifetime  to  en- 
grave it. 

It  is  awful  to  be  in  the  hands  of  the  wholesale 
professional  dealers  in  misfortune ;  undertakers  and 
jailers  magnetize  you  in  a  moment,  and  you  pass 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    37 

out  of  the  individual  life  you  were  living  into  the 
rhythmical  movements  of  their  horrible  machinery. 
Do  the  worst  thing  you  can,  or  suffer  the  worst  that 
can  be  thought  of,  you  find  yourself  in  a  category  of 
humanity  that  stretches  back  as  far  as  Cain,  and 
with  an  expert  at  your  elbow  who  has  studied  your 
case  all  out  beforehand,  and  is  waiting  for  you  with 
his  implements  of  hemp  or  mahogany.  I  believe,  if 
a  man  were  to  be  burned  in  any  of  our  cities  to- 
morrow for  heresy,  there  would  be  found  a  master 
of  ceremonies  that  knew  just  how  many  fagots  were 
necessary,  and  the  best  way  of  arranging  the  whole 
matter. 

So  we  have  not  won  the  Goodwood  cup ;  au 

contraire,  we  were  a  "  bad  fifth,"  if  not  worse  than 
that ;  and  trying  it  again,  and  the  third  time,  has  not 
yet  bettered  the  matter.  Now  I  am  as  patriotic  as 
any  of  my  fellow-citizens, — too  patriotic  in  fact,  for  I 
have  got  into  hot  water  by  loving  too  much  of  my 
country  ;  in  short,  if  any  man,  whose  fighting  weight 
is  not  more  than  eight  stone  four  pounds,  disputes 
it,  I  am  ready  to  discuss  the  point  with  him.  I 
should  have  gloried  to  see  the  stars  and  stripes  in 
front  at  the  finish.  I  love  my  country,  and  I  love 
horses.  Stubbs's  old  mezzotint  of  Eclipse  hangs  over 
my  desk,  and  Herring's  portrait  of  Plenipotentiary, 
— whom  I  saw  run  at  Epsom, — over  my  fireplace. 
Did  I  not  elope  from  school  to  see  Revenge,  and 
Prospect,  and  Little  John,  and  Peacemaker  run  over 


38    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

the  race-course  where  now  yon  suburban  village 
flourishes,  in  the  year  eighteen  hundred  and  ever-so- 
few?  Though  I  never  owned  a  horse,  have  I  not 
been  the  proprietor  of  six  equine  females,  of  which 
one  was  the  prettiest  little  "  Morgin "  that  ever 
stepped  ?  Listen,  then,  to  an  opinion  I  have  often 
expressed  long  before  this  venture  of  ours  in  England. 
Horse-racing  is  not  a  republican  institution ;  horse- 
trotting  is.  Only  very  rich  persons  can  keep  race- 
horses, and  everybody  knows  they  are  kept  mainly 
as  gambling  implements.  All  that  matter  about 
blood  and  speed  we  wont  discuss  ;  we  understand 
all  that ;  useful,  very, — of  course, — great  obligations 
to  the  Godolphin  "  Arabian,"  and  the  rest.  I  say 
racing  horses  are  essentially  gambling  implements, 
as  much  as  roulette  tables.  Now  I  am  not  preach- 
ing at  this  moment ;  I  may  read  you  one  of  my 
sermons  some  other  morning ;  but  I  maintain  that 
gambling,  on  the  great  scale,  is  not  republican.  It 
belongs  to  two  phases  of  society, — a  cankered  over- 
civilization,  such  as  exists  in  rich  aristocracies,  and 
the  reckless  life  of  borderers  and  adventurers,  or  the 
semi-barbarism  of  a  civilization  resolved  into  its 
primitive  elements.  Real  Republicanism  is  stern 
and  severe  ;  its  essence  is  not  in  forms  of  govern- 
ment, but  in  the  omnipotence  of  public  opinion 
which  grows  out  of  it.  This  public  opinion  cannot 
prevent  gambling  with  dice  or  stocks,  but  it  can  and 
does  compel  it  to  keep  comparatively  quiet.  But 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    39 

horse-racing  is  the  most  public  way  of  gambling; 
and  with  all  its  immense  attractions  to  the  sense  and 
the  feelings, — to  which  I  plead  very  susceptible, — the 
disguise  is  too  thin  that  covers  it,  and  everybody 
knows  what  it  means.  Its  supporters  are  the  South- 
ern gentry, — fine  fellows,  no  doubt,  but  not  republi- 
cans exactly,  as  we  understand  the  term, — a  few 
Northern  millionnaires  more  or  less  thoroughly  mil- 
lioned,  who  do  not  represent  the  real  people,  and  the 
mob  of  sporting  men,  the  best  of  whom  are  com- 
monly idlers,  and  the  worst  very  bad  neighbors  to 
have  near  one  in  a  crowd,  or  to  meet  in  a  dark  alley. 
In  England,  on  the  other  hand,  with  its  aristocratic 
institutions,  racing  is  a  natural  growth  enough  ;  the 
passion  for  it  spreads  downwards  through  all  classes, 
from  the  Queen  to  the  costermonger.  London  is 
like  a  shelled  corn-cob  on  the  Derby  day,  and  there 
is  not  a  clerk  who  could  raise  the  money  to  hire  a 
saddle  with  an  old  hack  under  it  that  can  sit  down 
on  his  office-stool  the  next  day  without  wincing. 

Now  just  compare  the  racer  with  the  trotter  for  a 
moment.  The  racer  is  incidentally  useful,  but  essen- 
tially something  to  bet  upon,  as  much  as  the  thim- 
ble-rigger's "  little  joker."  The  trotter  is  essentially 
and  daily  useful,  and  only  incidentally  a  tool  for 
sporting  men. 

What  better  reason  do  you  want  for  the  fact  that 
the  racer  is  most  cultivated  and  reaches  his  greatest 
perfection  in  England,  and  that  the  trotting  horses 


40    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

of  America  beat  the  world  ?  And  why  should  we 
have  expected  that  the  pick — if  it  was  the  pick—of 
our  few  and  far-between  racing  stables  should  beat 
the  pick  of  England  and  France  ?  Throw  over  the 
fallacious  time-test,  and  there  was  nothing  to  show 
for  it  but  a  natural  kind  of  patriotic  feeling,  which 
we  ah1  have,  with  a  thoroughly  provincial  conceit, 
which  some  of  us  must  plead  guilty  to. 

We  may  beat  yet.  As  an  American,  I  hope  we 
shall.  As  a  moralist  and  occasional  sermonizer,  I 
am  not  so  anxious  about  it.  Wherever  the  trotting 
horse  goes,  he  carries  in  his  train  brisk  omnibuses, 
lively  bakers'  carts,  and  therefore  hot  rolls,  the  jolly 
butcher's  wagon,  the  cheerful  gig,  the  wholesome 
afternoon  drive  with  wife  and  child, — all  the  forms 
of  moral  excellence,  except  truth,  which  does  not 
agree  with  any  kind  of  horse-flesh.  The  racer  brings 
with  him  gambling,  cursing,  swearing,  drinking,  the 
eating  of  oysters,  and  a  distaste  for  mob-caps  and 
the  middle-aged  virtues. 

And  by  the  way,  let  me  beg  you  not  to  call  a  trot' 
ting  match  a  race,  and  not  to  speak  of  a  "  thorough- 
bred "  as  a  "  blooded  "  horse,  unless  he  has  been  re- 
cently phlebotomized.  I  consent  to  your  saying 
"  blood  horse,"  if  you  like.  Also,  if,  next  year,  we 
send  out  Posterior  and  Posterioress,  the  winners  of 
the  great  national  four-mile  race  in  7  18|,  and  they 
happen  to  get  beaten,  pay  your  bets,  and  behave  like 
men  and  gentlemen  about  it,  if  you  know  how. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    4] 

[I  felt  a  great  deal  better  after  blowing  oft'  the  ill- 
temper  condensed  in  the  above  paragraph.  To  brag 
little, — to  show  well, — to  crow  gently,  if  in  luck, — 
to  pay  up,  to  own  up,  and  to  shut  up,  if  beaten,  are 
the  virtues  of  a  sporting  man,  and  I  can't  say  that  I 
think  we  have  shown  them  in  any  great  perfection 
of  late.] 

Apropos  of  horses.  Do  you  know  how  im- 
portant good  jockeying  is  to  authors  ?  Judicious 
management ;  letting  the  public  see  your  animal  just 
enough,  and  not  too  much;  holding  him  up  hard 
when  the  market  is  too  full  of  him  ;  letting  him  out 
at  just  the  right  buying  intervals ;  always  gently 
feeling  his  mouth ;  never  slacking  and  never  jerking 
the  rein  ; — this  is  what  I  mean  by  jockeying. 

When  an  author  has  a  number  of  books  out, 

a  cunning  hand  will  keep  them  ah1  spinning,  as  Sig- 
nor  Blitz  does  his  dinner-plates  ;  fetching  each  one 
up,  as  it  begins  to  "  wabble,"  by  an  advertisement, 
a  puff,  or  a  quotation. 

Whenever  the  extracts  from  a  living  writer 

begin  to  multiply  fast  in  the  papers,  without  obvious 
reason,  there  is  a  new  book  or  a  new  edition  coming. 
The  extracts  are  ground-bait. 

Literary  life  is  full  of  curious  phenomena.  I 

don't  know  that  there  is  anything  more  noticeable 
than  what  we  may  call  conventional  reputations. 
There  is  a  tacit  understanding  in  every  community 
of  men  of  letters  that  they  will  not  disturb  the  pop- 


42    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

ular  fallacy  respecting  this  or  that  electro-gilded  ce- 
lebrity. There  are  various  reasons  for  this  forbear- 
ance :  one  is  old  ;  one  is  rich  ;  one  is  good-natured  ; 
one  is  such  a  favorite  with  the  pit  that  it  would  not 
be  safe  to  hiss  him  from  the  manager's  box.  The 
venerable  augurs  of  the  literary  or  scientific  temple 
may  smile  faintly  when  one  of  the  tribe  is  men- 
tioned ;  but  the  farce  is  in  general  kept  up  as  well  as 
the  Chinese  comic  scene  of  entreating  and  imploring 
a  man  to  stay  with  you,  with  the  implied  compact 
between  you  that  he  shall  by  no  means  think  of 
doing  it.  A  poor  wretch  he  must  be  who  would 
wantonly  sit  down  on  one  of  these  b^uJbox  reputa- 
tions. A  Prince-Rupert's-drop,  which  is  a  tear  of 
unannealed  glass,  lasts  indefinitely,  if  you  keep  it 
from  meddling  hands ;  but  break  its  tail  off,  and  it 
explodes  and  resolves  itself  into-  powder.  These 
celebrities  I  speak  of  are  the  Prince-Rupert's-drops 
of  the  learned  and  polite  world.  See  how  the  papers 
treat  them !  What  an  array  of  pleasant  kaleido- 
scopic phrases,  which  can  be  arranged  in  ever  so 
many  charming  patterns,  is  at  their  service !  How 
kind  the  "  Critical  Notices  " — where  small  author- 
ship comes  to  pick  up  chips  of  praise,  fragrant,  sug- 
ary, and  sappy — always  are  to  them  !  Well,  life 
would  be  nothing  without  paper-credit  and  other  fic- 
tions ;  so  let  them  pass  current  Don't  steal  their 
chips  ;  don't  puncture  their  swimming-bladders  ;  don't 
come  down  on  their  pasteboard  boxes ;  don't  break 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    43 

the  ends  of  their  brittle  and  unstable  reputations, 
you  fellows  who  all  feel  sure  that  your  names  will 
be  household  words  a  thousand  years  from  now. 

"  A  thousand  years  is  a  good  while,"  said  the  old 
gentleman  who  sits  opposite,  thoughtfully. 

Where  have  I  been  for  the  last  three  or  four 

days  ?  Down  at  the  Island,  deer-shooting. — How 
many  did  I  bag  ?  I  brought  home  one  buck  shot. — 
The  Island  is  where  ?  No  matter.  It  is  the  most 
splendid  domain  that  any  man  looks  upon  in  these 
latitudes.  Blue  sea  around  it,  and  running  up  into 
its  heart,  so  that  the  little  boat  slumbers  like  a  baby 
in  lap,  while  the  tall  ships  are  stripping  naked  to 
fight  the  hurricane  outside,  and  storm-stay-sails  bang- 
ing and  flying  in  ribbons.  Trees,  in  stretches  of 
miles  ;  beeches,  oaks,  most  numerous ; — many  of 
them  hung  with  moss,  looking  like  bearded  Druids ; 
some  coiled  in  the  clasp  of  huge,  dark-stemmed 
grape-vines.  Open  patches  where  the  sun  gets  in 
and  goes  to  slee'p,  and  the  winds  come  so  finely 
sifted  that  they  are  as  soft  as  swan's  down.  Rocks 
scattered  about, — Stonehenge-like  monoliths.  Fresh- 
water lakes  ;  one  of  them,  Mary's  lake,  crystal-clear, 
full  of  flashing  pickerel  lying  under  the  lily-pads  like 
tigers  in  the  jungle.  Six  pounds  of  ditto  killed  one 
morning  for  breakfast.  EGO  fecit. 

The  divinity-student  looked  as  if  he  would  like  to 
question  my  Latin.  No,  sir,  I  said, — you  need  not 
trouble  yourself.  There  is  a  higher  law  in  grammar, 


44    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

not  to  be  put  down  by  Andrews  and  Stoddard. 
Then  I  went  on. 

Such  hospitality  as  that  island  has  seen  there  has 
not  been  the  like  of  in  these  our  New  England  sov- 
ereignties. There  is  nothing  in  the  shape  of  kind- 
ness and  courtesy  that  can  make  life  beautiful,  which 
has  not  found  its  home  in  that  ocean-principality. 
It  has  welcomed  all  who  were  worthy  of  welcome, 
from  the  pale  clergyman  who  came  to  breathe  the 
sea-air  with  its  medicinal  salt  and  iodine,  to  the 
great  statesman  who  turned  his  back  on  the  affairs 
of  empire,  and  smoothed  his  Olympian  forehead, 
and  flashed  his  white  teeth  in  merriment  over  the 
long  table,  where  his  wit  was  the  keenest  and  his 
story  the  best. 

[I  don't  believe  any  man  ever  talked  like  that  in 
this  world.  I  don't  believe  /  talked  just  so  ;  but  the 
fact  is,  in  reporting  one's  conversation,  one  cannot 
help  Blair-ing  it  up  more  or  less,  ironing  out  crumpled 
paragraphs,  starching  limp  ones,  and  crimping  and 
plaiting  a  little  sometimes ;  it  is  as  natural  as  prink- 
ing at  the  looking-glass.] 

How  can  a  man  help  writing  poetry  in  such 

a  place  ?  Everybody  does  write  poetry  that  goes 
there.  In  the  state  archives,  kept  in  the  library  of 
the  Lord  of  the  Isle,  are  whole  volumes  of  unpub- 
lished verse, — some  by  well-known  hands,  and  others, 
quite  as  good,  by  the  last  people  you  would  think  of 
as  versifiers, — men  who  could  pension  off  all  the 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    45 

genuine  poets  in  the  country,  and  buy  ten  acres  of 
Boston  common,  if  it  was  for  sale,  with  what  they 
had  left.  Of  course  I  had  to  write  my  little  copy  of 
verses  with  the  rest ;  here  it  is,  if  you  will  hear  me 
read  it.  When  the  sun  is  in  the  west,  vessels  sail- 
ing in  an  easterly  direction  look  bright  or  dark  to 
one  who  observes  them  from  the  north  or  south, 
according  to  the  tack  they  are  sailing  upon.  Watch- 
ing them  from  one  of  the  windows  of  the  great 
mansion,  I  saw  these  perpetual  changes,  and  mor- 
alized thus :- — 

SUN  AND   SHADOW. 

As  I  look  from  the  isle,  o'er  its  billows  of  green, 

To  the  billows  of  foam-crested  blue, 
Yon  bark,  that  afar  in  the  distance  is  seen, 

Half  dreaming,  my  eyes  will  pursue  : 
Now  dark  in  the  shadow,  she  scatters  the  spray 

As  the  chaff  in  the  stroke  of  the  flail ; 
Now  white  as  the  sea-gull,  she  flies  on  her  way, 

The  sun  gleaming  bright  on  her  sail. 

Yet  her  pilot  is  thinking  of  dangers  to  shun, — 

Of  breakers  that  whiten  and  roar ; 
How  little  he  cares,  if  in  shadow  or  sun 

They  see  him  that  gaze  from  the  shore ! 
He  looks  to  the  beacon  that  looms  from  the  reef, 

To  the  rock  that  is  under  his  lee, 
As  he  drifts  on  the  blast,  like  a  wind-wafted  leaf, 

O'er  the  gulfs  of  the  desolate  sea. 


46          THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Thus  drifting  afar  to  the  dim-vaulted  caves 

Where  life  and  its  ventures  are  laid, 
The  dreamers  who  gaze  while  we  battle  the  waves 

May  see  us  in  sunshine  or  shade ; 
Yet  true  to  our  course,  though  our  shadow  grow  dark, 

We'll  trim  our  broad  sail  as  before, 
And  stand  by  the  rudder  that  governs  the  bark, 

Nor  ask  how  we  look  from  the  shore  ! 

Insanity  is  often  the  logic  of  an  accurate  mind 

overtasked.  Good  mental  machinery  ought  to  break 
its  own  wheels  and  levers,  if  anything  is  thrust  among 
them  suddenly  which  tends  to  stop  them  or  reverse 
their  motion.  A  weak  mind  does  not  accumulate 
force  enough  to  hurt  itself;  stupidity  often  saves  a 
man  from  going  mad.  We  frequently  see  persons  in 
insane  hospitals,  sent  there  in  consequence  of  what 
are  called  religious  mental  disturbances.  I  confess 
that  I  think  better  of  them  than  of  many  who  hold 
the  same  notions,  and  keep  their  wits  and  appear  to 
enjoy  life  very  well,  outside  of  the  asylums.  Any 
decent  person  ought  to  go  mad,  if  he  really  holds 
such  or  such  opinions.  It  is  very  much  to  his  dis- 
credit in  every  point  of  view,  if  he  does  not.  What 
is  the  use  of  my  saying  what  some  of  these  opinions 
are  ?  Perhaps  more  than  one  of  you  hold  such  as  I 
should  think  ought  to  send  you  straight  over  to 
Somerville,  if  you/  have  any  logic  in  your  heads  or 
any  human  feeling  in  your  hearts.  Anything  that  is 
brutal,  cruel,  heathenish,  that  makes  life  hopeless  for 
the  most  of  mankind  and  perhaps  for  entire  races, — 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    47 

anything  that  assumes  the  necessity  of  the  extermi- 
nation of  instincts  which  were  given  to  be  regulated, 
—no  matter  by  what  name  you  call  it, — no  matter 
whether  a  fakir,  or  a  monk,  or  a  deacon  believes  it, 
— if  received,  ought  to  produce  insanity  in  every 
well-regulated  mind.  That  condition  becomes  a 
normal  one,  under  the  circumstances.  I  am  very 
much  ashamed  of  some  people  for  retaining  their 
reason,  when  they  know  perfectly  well  that  if  they 
were  not  the  most  stupid  or  the  most  selfish  of  hu- 
man beings,  they  would  become  non-compotes  at  once. 

[Nobody  understood  this  but  the  theological  stu- 
dent and  the  schoolmistress.  They  looked  intelli- 
gently at  each  other;  but  whether  they  were  thinking 
about  my  paradox  or  not,  I  am  not  clear. — It  would 
be  natural  enough.  Stranger  things  have  happened. 
Love  and  Death  enter  boarding-houses  without  ask- 
ing the  price  of  board,  or  whether  there  is  room  for 
them.  Alas,  these  young  people  are  poor  and  pallid! 
Love  should  be  both  rich  and  rosy,  but  must  be  either 
rich  or  rosy.  Talk  about  military  duty  !  What  is 
that  to  the  warfare  of  a  married  maid-of-all-work, 
with  the  title  of  mistress,  and  an  American  female 
constitution,  which  collapses  just  in  the  middle  third 
of  life,  and  comes  out  vulcanized  India-rubber,  if  it 
happen  to  live  through  the  period  when  health  and 
strength  are  most  wanted  ?] 

Have  I  ever  acted  in  private  theatricals  ? 

Often.  I  have  played  the  part  of  the  "  Poor  Gentle- 


48    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

man,"  before  a  great  many  audiences, — more,  I  trust, 
than  I  shall  ever  face  again.  I  did  riot  wear  a  stage- 
costume,  nor  a  wig,  nor  moustaches  of  burnt  cork ; 
but  I  was  placarded  and  announced  as  a  public  per- 
former, and  at  the  proper  hour  I  came  forward  with 
the  ballet-dancer's  smile  upon  my  countenance,  and 
made  my  bow  and  acted  my  part.  I  have  seen  my 
name  stuck  up  in  letters  so  big  that  I  was  ashamed 
to  show  myself  in  the  place  by  daylight.  I  have 
gone  to  a  town  with  a  sober  literary  essay  in  my 
pocket,  and  seen  myself  everywhere  announced  as 
the  most  desperate  of  buffos, — one  who  was  obliged 
to  restrain  himself  in  the  full  exercise  of  his  powers, 
from  prudential  considerations.  I  have  been  through 
as  many  hardships  as  Ulysses,  in  the  pursuit  of  my 
histrionic  vocation.  I  have  travelled  in  cars  until  the 
conductors  all  knew  me  like  a  brother.  I  have  run 
off  the  rails,  and  stuck  all  night  in  snow-drifts,  and 
sat  behind  females  that  would  have  the  window  open 
when  one  could  not  wink  without  his  eyelids  freez- 
ing together.  Perhaps  I  shall  give  you  some  of  my 
experiences  one  of  these  days ; — I  will  not  now,  for 
I  have  something  else  for  you. 

Private  theatricals,  as  I  have  figured  in  them  in 
country  lyceum-halls,  are  one  thing, — and  private 
theatricals,  as  they  may  be  seen  in  certain  gilded  and 
frescoed  saloons  of  our  metropolis,  are  another.  Yes, 
it  is  pleasant  to  see  real  gentlemen  and  ladies,  who 
do  not  think  it  necessary  to  mouth,  and  rant,  and 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    49 

stride,  like  most  of  our  stage  heroes  and  heroines,  in 
the  characters  which  show  off  their  graces  and  talents ; 
most  of  all  to  see  a  fresh,  unrouged,  unspoiled,  high- 
bred young  maiden,  with  a  lithe  figure,  and  a  pleas- 
ant voice,  acting  in  those  love-dramas  which  make 
us  young  again  to  look  upon,  when  real  youth  and 
beauty  will  play  them  for  us. 

Of  course  I  wrote  the  prologue  I  was  asked 

to  write.  I  did  not  see  the  play,  though.  I  knew 
there  was  a  young  lady  in  it,  and  that  somebody  was 
in  love  with  her,  and  she  was  in  love  with  him,  and 
somebody  (an  old  tutor,  I  believe)  wanted  to  inter- 
fere, and,  very  naturally,  the  young  lady  was  too 
sharp  for  him.  The  play  of  course  ends  charmingly  ; 
there  is  a  general  reconciliation,  and  all  concerned 
form  a  line  and  take  each  others'  hands,  as  people 
always  do  after  they  have  made  up  their  quarrels, — 
and  then  the  curtain  falls, — if  it  does  not  stick,  as  it 
commonly  does  at  private  theatrical  exhibitions,  in 
which  case  a  boy  is  detailed  to  pull  it  down,  which 
he  does,  blushing  violently. 

Now,  then,  for  my  prologue.  I  am  not  going  to 
change  my  caesuras  and  cadences  for  anybody ;  so 
if  you  do  not  like  the  heroic,  or  iambic  trimeter 
brachy-catalectic,  you  had  better  not  wait  to  hear  it. 

THIS  IS  IT. 

A  Prologue  ?    Well,  of  course  the  ladies  know ; — 
I  have  my  doubts.     No  matter, — here  we  go  ! 


50          THE  AUTOCRAT  OF   THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

What  is  a  Prologue  ?     Let  our  Tutor  teach : 
Pro  means  beforehand ;  logos  stands  for  speech. 
'Tis  like  the  harper's  prelude  on  the  strings, 
The  prima  donna's  courtesy  ere  she  sings ; — 
Prologues  in  metre  are  to  other  pros 
As  worsted  stockings  are  to  engine-hose. 

"  The  world's  a  stage,"— as  Shakspeare  said,  one  day- 

The  stage  a  world — was  what  he  meant  to  say. 

The  outside  world's  a  blunder,  that  is  clear ; 

The  real  world  that  Nature  meant  is  here. 

Here  every  foundling  finds  its  lost  mamma ; 

Each  rogue,  repentant,  melts  his  stern  papa ; 

Misers  relent,  the  spendthrift's  debts  are  paid, 

The  cheats  are  taken  in  the  traps  they  laid ; 

One  after  one  the  troubles  all  are  past 

Till  the  fifth  act  comes  right  side  up  at  last, 

When  the  young  couple,  old  folks,  rogues,  and  all, 

Join  hands,  so  happy  at  the  curtain's  fall. 

— Here  suffering  virtue  ever  finds  relief, 

And  black-browed  ruffians  always  come  to  grief, 

— When  the  lorn  damsel,  with  a  frantic  screech, 

And  cheeks  as  hueless  as  a  brandy-peach, 

Cries,  "  Help,  kyind  Heaven ! "  and  drops  upon  her  knees 

On  the  green — baize, — beneath  the  (canvas)  trees, — 

See  to  her  side  avenging  Valor  fly : — 

"  Ha  !  Villain  !  Draw  !     Now,  Terraitorr,  yield  or  die  !  " 

— When  the  poor  hero  flounders  in  despair, 

Some  dear  lost  uncle  turns  up  millionnaire, — 

Clasps  the  young  scapegrace  with  paternal  joy, 

Sobs  on  his  neck,  "My  boy  I  MY  BOY  ! !  MY  BOY ! ! ! " 

Ours,  then,  sweet  friends,  the  real  world  to-night. 
Of  love  that  conquers  in  disaster's  spite. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    51 

Ladles,  attend  !     While  woful  cares  and  doubt 
Wrong  the  soft  passion  in  the  world  without, 
Though  fortune  scowl,  though  prudence  interfere, 
One  tiling  is  certain  :  Love  will  triumph  here  ! 

Lords  of  creation,  whom  your  ladies  rule, — 

The  world's  great  masters,  when  you're  out  of  school,— 

Learn  the  brief  moral  of  our  evening's  play : 

Man  has  his  will, — but  woman  has  her  way ! 

While  man's  dull  spirit  toils  in  smoke  and  fire, 

Woman's  swift  instinct  threads  the  electric  wire,— 

The  magic  bracelet  stretched  beneath  the  waves 

Beats  the  black  giant  with  his  score  of  slaves. 

All  earthly  powers  confess  your  sovereign  art 

But  that  one  rebel, — woman's  wilful  heart. 

All  foes  you  master ;  but  a  woman's  wit 

Lets  daylight  through  you  ere  you  know  you're  hit. 

So,  just  to  picture  what  her  art  can  do, 

Hear  an  old  story  made  as  good  as  new. 

Rudolph,  professor  of  the  headsman's  trade, 

Alike  was  famous  for  his  arm  and  blade. 

One  day  a  prisoner  Justice  had  to  kill 

Knelt  at  the  block  to  test  the  artist's  skill. 

Bare-armed,  swart-visaged,  gaunt,  and  shaggy-browed, 

Rudolph  the  headsman  rose  above  the  crowd. 

His  falchion  lightened  with  a  sudden  gleam, 

As  the  pike's  armor  flashes  in  the  stream. 

He  sheathed  his  blade  ;  he  turned  as  if  to  go ; 

The  victim  knelt,  still  waiting  for  the  blow. 

"  Why  strikest  not  ?     Perform  thy  murderous  act," 

The  prisoner  said.     (His  voice  was  slightly  cracked.) 

"  Friend  I  have  struck,"  the  artist  straight  replied ; 

"  Wait  but  one  moment,  and  yourself  decide." 


52    THE  AUTOCKAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

He  held  his  snuff-box, — "  Now  then,  if  you  please  ! " 
The  prisoner  sniffed,  and,  with  a  crashing  sneeze, 
Off  his  head  tumbled, — bowled  along  the  floor, — 
Bounced  down  the  steps ; — the  prisoner  said  no  more  ! 

Woman  !  thy  falchion  is  a  glittering  eye  ; 
If  death  lurks  in  it,  oh,  how  sweet  to  die  ! 
Thou  takest  hearts  as  Rudolph  took  the  head  ; 
We  die  with  love,  and  never  dream  we're  dead  ! 

The  prologue  went  off  very  well,  as  I  hear.  No 
alterations  were  suggested  by  the  lady  to  whom  it 
was  sent,  so  far  as  I  know.  Sometimes  people  criti- 
cize the  poems  one  sends  them,  and  suggest  all  sorts 
of  improvements.  Who  was  that  silly  body  that 
wanted  Burns  to  alter  "  Scots  wha  hae,"  so  as  to 
lengthen  the  last  line,  thus  ? — 

"  Edward  I "     Chains  and  slavery ! 

Here  is  a  little  poem  I  sent  a  short  time  since  to  a 
committee  for  a  certain  celebration.  I  understood 
that  it  was  to  be  a  festive  and  convivial  occasion,  and 
ordered  myself  accordingly.  It  seems  the  president 
of  the  day  was  what  is  called  a  "teetotaller."  I 
received  a  note  from  him  in  the  following  words, 
containing  the  copy  subjoined,  with  the  emendations 
annexed  to  it. 

"  Dear  Sir, — your  poem  gives  good  satisfaction  to 
the  committee.  The  sentiments  expressed  with  ref- 
erence to  liquor  are  not,  however,  those  generally  en- 
tertained by  this  community.  I  have  therefore  con- 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    53 

suited  the  clergyman  of  this  place,  who  has  made 
some  slight  changes,  which  he  thinks  will  remove  all 
objections,  and  keep  the  valuable  portions  of  the 
poem.  Please  to  inform  me  of  your  charge  for  said 
poem.  Our  means  are  limited,  etc.,  etc.,  etc. 

"  Yours  with  respect." 

HERE  IT  IS—  WITH  THE   SLIGHT  ALTERATIONS! 
Come  !  fill  a  fresh  bumper,  —  for  why  should  we  go 

logwood 
While  the  aeet-ar  still  reddens  our  cups  as  they  flow  ? 

decoction 
Pour  out  the  Fkrh-juiecS  still  bright  with  the  sun, 

dye-stuff 


Till  o'er  the  brimmed  crystal  the  yabica  shall  run. 

half-ripened  apples 

The  purple  glebed-e^ttetefg  their  life-dews  have  bled  ; 

taste  sugar  of  lead 

How  sweet  is  the  breath  of  the  &agraB^c  they  s 

rank  poisons 


For  summer's  fait  roses  lie  hid  in  the  wtaes 

stable-boys  smoking  long-nines. 

That  were  garnered  by  maidens  wkei&aghcd  through  tbe^iacs* 


scowl  howl  scoff  sneer 

Then  a  si»iks  and  a  glass,  and  a  toast,  and  a  eked5, 

strychnine  and  whiskey,  and  ratsbane  and  beer 


For  all  the  good  wmc,  and  weVe- 
In  cellar,  in  pantry,  in  attic,  in  hall, 

Down,  down,  with  the  tyrant  that  masters  us  all  ! 

jereag-lyre-TO-G  g5r}^sey-^atrt-ni-at  ratigiis  for  IB  al-r  ! 
The  company  said  I  had  been  shabbily  treated,  and 


54    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

advised  me  to  charge  the  committee  double, — which 
I  did.  But  as  I  never  got  my  pay,  I  don't  know  that 
it  made  much  difference.  I  am  a  very  particular 
person  about  having  all  I  write  printed  as  I  write  it. 
I  require  to  see  a  proof,  a  revise,  a  re-revise,  and  a 
double  re-revise,  or  fourth-proof  rectified  impression 
of  all  my  productions,  especially  verse.  A  misprint 
kills  a  sensitive  author.  An  intentional  change  of 
his  text  murders  him.  No  wonder  so  many  poets 
die  young ! 

I  have  nothing  more  to  report  at  this  time,  except 
two  pieces  of  advice  I  gave  to  the  young  women  at 
table.  One  relates  to  a  vulgarism  of  language, 
which  I  grieve  to  say  is  sometime^  heard  even  from 
female  lips.  The  other  is  of  more  serious  purport, 
and  applies  to  such  as  contemplate  a  change  of  con- 
dition,— matrimony,  in  fact. 

The  woman  who  "  calc'lates  "  is  lost. 

Put  not  your  trust  in  money,  but  put  your 

money  in  trust. 


III. 

[THE  "Atlantic"  obeys  the  moon,  and  its  LUNI- 
VERSARY  has  come  round  again.  I  have  gathered 
up  some  hasty  notes  of  my  remarks  made  since  the 
last  high  tides,  which  I  respectfully  submit.  Please 
to  remember  this  is  talk;  just  as  easy  and  just  as 
formal  as  I  choose  to  make  it] 


THE  AUTOCKAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    55 

1  never  saw  an  author  in  my  life — saving, 

perhaps,  one — that  did  not  purr  as  audibly  as  a  full- 
grown  domestic  cat,  (Felis  Catus^  LINN.,)  on  having 
his  fur  smoothed  in  the  right  way  by  a  skilful  hand. 

But  let  me  give  you  a  caution.  Be  very  careful 
how  you  tell  an  author  he  is  droll.  Ten  to  one  he 
will  hate  you ;  and  if  he  does,  be  sure  he  can  do  you 
a  mischief,  and  very  probably  will.  Say  you  cried 
over  his  romance  or  his  verses,  and  he  will  love  you 
and  send  you  a  copy.  You  can  laugh  over  that  as 
much  as  you  like — in  private. 

Wonder  why  authors  and  actors  are  ashamed 

of  being  funny  ? — Why,  there  are  obvious  reasons, 
and  deep  philosophical  ones.  The  clown  knows 
very  well  that  the  women  are  not  in  love  with  him, 
but  with  Hamlet, 'the  fellow  in  the  black  cloak  and 
plumed  hat.  Passion  never  laughs.  The  wit  knows 
that  his  place  is  at  the  tail  of  a  procession. 

If  you  want  the  deep  underlying  reason,  I  must 
take  more  time  to  tell  it.  There  is  a  perfect  con- 
sciousness in  every  form  of  wit — using  that  term  in 
its  general  sense — that  its  essence  consists  in  a  par- 
tial and  incomplete  view  of  whatever  it  touches.  It 
throws  a  single  ray,  separated  from  the  rest, — red, 
yellow,  blue,  or  any  intermediate  shade, — upon  an 
object;  never  white  light;  that  is  the  province  of 
wisdom.  We  get  beautiful  effects  from  wit, — ail 
the  prismatic  colors, — but  never  the  object  as  it  is  in 
fail-  daylight.  A  pun,  which  is  a  kind  of  wit,  is  a 


56    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

different  and  much  shallower  trick  in  mental  optics  ; 
throwing  the  shadows  of  two  objects  so  that  one 
overlies  the  other.  Poetry  uses  the  rainbow  tints 
for  special  effects,  but  always  keeps  its  essential  ob- 
ject in  the  purest  white  light  of  truth. — Will  you 
allow  me  to  pursue  this  subject  a  little  further  ? 

[They  didn't  allow  me  at  that  time,  for  somebody 
happened  to  scrape  the  floor  with  his  chair  just  then  ; 
which  accidental  sound,  as  all  must  have  noticed, 
has  the  instantaneous  effect  that  the  cutting  of  the 
yellow  hair  by  Iris  had  upon  infelix  Dido.  It  broke 
the  charm,  and  that  breakfast  was  over.] 

Don't  flatter  yourselves  that  friendship  au- 
thorizes you  to  say  disagreeable  things  to  your  inti- 
mates. On  the  contrary,  the  nearer  you  come  into 
relation  with  a  person,  the  more  necessary  do  tact 
and  courtesy  become.  Except  in  cases  of  necessity, 
which  are  rare,  leave  your  friend  to  learn  unpleasant 
truths  from  his  enemies ;  they  are  ready  enough  to 
tell  them.  Good-breeding  never  forgets  that  amour- 
propre  is  universal.  When  you  read  the  story  of 
the  Archbishop  and  Gil  Bias,  you  may  laugh,  if  you 
will,  at  the  poor  old  man's  delusion ;  but  don't  forget 
that  the  youth  was  the  greater  fool  of  the  two,  and 
that  his  master  served  such  a  booby  rightly  in  turn- 
ing him  out  of  doors. 

You  need  not  get  up  a  rebellion  against  what 

I  say,  if  you  find  everything  in  my  sayings  is  not 
exactly  new.  You  can't  possibly  mistake  a  man 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    57 

who  means  to  be  honest  for  a  literary  pickpocket.  I 
once  read  an  introductory  lecture  that  looked  to  me 
too  learned  for  its  latitude.  On  examination,  I  found 
all  its  erudition  was  taken  ready-made  from  D' Israeli. 
If  I  had  been  ill-natured,  I  should  have  shown  up 
the  little  great  man,  who  had  once  belabored  me  in 
his  feeble  way.  Bat  one  can  generally  tell  these 
wholesale  thieves  easily  enough,  and  they  are  not 
worth  the  trouble  of  putting  them  in  the  pillory.  I 
doubt  the  entire  novelty  of  my  remarks  just  made 
on  telling  unpleasant  truths,  yet  I  am  not  conscious 
of  any  larceny. 

Neither  make  too  much  of  flaws  and  occasional 
overstatements.  Some  persons  seem  to  think  that 
absolute  truth,  in  the  form  of  rigidly  stated  propo- 
sitions, is  all  that  conversation  admits.  This  is 
precisely  as  if  a  musician  should  insist  on  having 
nothing  but  perfect  chords  and  simple  melodies, — no 
diminished  fifths,  no  flat  sevenths,  no  flourishes,  on 
any  account.  Now  it  is  fair  to  say,  that,  just  as 
music  must  have  all  these,  so  conversation  must 
have  its  partial  truths,  its  embellished  truths,  its  ex- 
aggerated truths.  It  is  in  its  higher  forms  an  artistic 
product,  and  admits  the  ideal  element  as  much 
as  pictures  or  statues.  One  man  who  is  a  little  too 
literal  can  spoil  the  talk  of  a  whole  tableful  of  men 
of  esprit. — "  Yes/'  you  say,  "  but  who  wants  to  hear 
fanciful  people's  nonsense  ?  Put  the  facts  to  it,  and 
then  see  where  it  is ! " — Certainly,  if  a  man  is  too 
•3* 


58          THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BEE AKF AST-TABLE. 

fond  of  paradox, — if  he  is  flighty  and  empty, — if, 
instead  of  striking  those  fifths  and  sevenths,  those 
harmonious  discords,  often  so  much  better  than  the 
twinned  octaves,  in  the  music  of  thought, — if,  instead 
of  striking  these,  he  jangles  the  chords,  stick  a  fact 
into  him  like  a  stiletto.  But  remember  that  talking 
is  one  of  the  fine  arts, — the  noblest,  the  most  impor- 
tant, and  the  most  difficult, — and  that  its  fluent  har- 
monies may  be  spoiled  by  the  intrusion  of  a  single 
harsh  note.  Therefore  conversation  which  is  sug- 
gestive rather  than  argumentative,  which  lets  out 
the  most  of  each  talker's  results  of  thought,  is  com- 
monly the  pleasantest  and  the  most  profitable.  It  is 
not  easy,  at  the  best,  for  two  persons  talking  together 
to  make  the  most  of  each  other's  thoughts,  there  are 
so  many  of  them. 

[The  company  looked  as  if  they  wanted  an  expla- 
nation.] 

When  John  and  Thomas,  for  instance,  are  talking 
together,  it  is  natural  enough  that  among  the  six 
there  should  be  more  or  less  confusion  and  misappre- 
hension. 

[Our  landlady  turned  pale  ; — no  doubt  she  thought 
there  was  a  screw  loose  in  my  intellects, — and  that 
involved  the  probable  loss  of  a  boarder.  A  severe- 
looking  person,  who  wears  a  Spanish  cloak  and  a 
sad  cheek,  fluted  by  the  passions  of  the  melodrama, 
whom  I  understand  to  be  the  professional  ruffian  of 
the  neighboring  theatre,  alluded,  with  a  certain  lift- 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    59 

ing  of  the  brow,  drawing  down  of  the  corners  of  the 
mouth,  and  somewhat  rasping  voce  di  petto,  to  Fal- 
staff's  nine  men  in  buckram.  Everybody  looked  up. 
I  believe  the  old  gentleman  opposite  was  afraid  I 
should  seize  the  carving-knife ;  at  any  rate,  he  slid 
it  to  one  side,  as  it  were  carelessly.] 

I  think,  I  said,  I  can  make  it  plain  to  Benjamin 
Franklin  here,  that  there  are  at  least  six  personalities 
distinctly  to  be  recognized  as  taking  part  in  that 
dialogue  between  John  and  Thomas. 

(1.  The  real  John  ;  known  only  to  his  Maker. 
2.  John's  ideal  John  ;  never  the  real  one,  and  often 
very  unlike  him. 
3.  Thomas's  ideal  John  ;  never  the  real  John,  nor 
John's  John,  but  often  very  unlike  either. 
(I.  The  real  Thomas. 

Three  Thomases.  •<  2.  Thomas's  ideal  Thomas. 
(  3.  John's  ideal  Thomas. 

Only  one  of  the  three  Johns  is  taxed ;  only  one 
can  be  weighed  on  a  platform-balance ;  but  the  other 
two  are  just  as  important  in  the  conversation.  Let 
us  suppose  the  real  John  to  be  old,  dull,  and  ill-look- 
ing. But  as  the  Higher  Powers  have  not  conferred 
on  men  the  gift  of  seeing  themselves  in  the  true 
light,  John  very  possibly  conceives  himself  to  be 
youthful,  witty,  and  fascinating,  and  talks  from  the 
point  of  view  of  this  ideal.  Thomas,  again,  believes 
him  to  be  an  artful  rogue,  we  will  say ;  therefore  he 
is,  so  far  as  Thomas's  attitude  in  the  conversation  is 
concerned,  an  artful  rogue,  though  really  simple  and 
stupid.  The  same  conditions  apply  to  the  three 


i 

60    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

« 

Thomases.  It  follows,  that,  until  a  man  can  be 
found  who  knows  himself  as  his  Maker  knows  him, 
or  who  sees  himself  as  others  see  him,  there  must  be 
at  least  six  persons  engaged  in  every  dialogue  be- 
tween two.  Of  these,  the  least  important,  philo- 
sophically speaking,  is  the  one  that  we  have  called 
the  real  person.  No  wonder  two  disputants  often 
get  angry,  when  there  are  six  of  them  talking  and 
listening  all  at  the  same  time. 

[A  very  unphilosophical  application  of  the  above 
remarks  was  made  by  a  young  fellow,  answering  to 
the  name  of  John,  who  sits  near  me  at  table.  A 
certain  basket  of  peaches,  a  rare  vegetable,  little 
known  to  boarding-houses,  was  on  its  way  to  me 
vid  this  unlettered  Johannes.  He  appropriated  the 
three  that  remained  in  the  basket,  remarking  that 
there  was  just  one  apiece  for  him.  I  convinced 
him  that  his  practical  inference  was  hasty  and  il- 
logical, but  in  the  mean  time  he  had  eaten  the 
peaches.] 

The  opinions  of  relatives  as  to  a  man's  pow- 
ers are  very  commonly  of  little  value  ;  not  merely 
because  they  sometimes  overrate  their  own  flesh  and 
blood,  as  some  may  suppose ;  on  the  contrary,  they 
are  quite  as  likely  to  underrate  those  whom  they 
have  grown  into  the  habit  of  considering  like  them- 
selves. The  advent  of  genius  is  like  what  florists 
style  the  breaking  of  a  seedling  tulip  into  what  we 
may  call  -high-caste  colors, — ten  thousand  dingy 


THE   YOUNG    FELLOW    CALLED   JOHN. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BKEAKFAST-TABLE.    61 

flowers,  then  one  with  the  divine  streak  ;  or,  if  you 
prefer  it,  like  the  coming  up  in  old  Jacob's  garden 
of  that  most  gentlemanly  little  fruit,  the  seckel  pear, 
which  I  have  sometimes  seen  in  shop-windows.  It 
is  a  surprise, — there  is  nothing  to  account  for  it.  All 
at  once  we  find  that  twice  two  make  Jive.  Nature 
is  fond  of  what  are  called  "  gift-enterprises."  This 
little  book  of  life  which  she  has  given  into  the  hands 
of  its  joint  possessors  is  commonly  one  of  the  old 
story-books  bound  over  again.  Only  once  in  a  great 
while  there  is  a  stately  poem  in  it,  or  its  leaves  are 
illuminated  with  the  glories  of  art,  or  they  enfold  a 
draft  for  untold  values  signed  by  the  million-fold 
millionnaire  old  mother  herself.  But  strangers  are 
commonly  the  first  to  find  the  "  gift "  that  came  with 
the  little  book. 

It  may  be  questioned  whether  anything  can  be 
conscious  of  its  own  flavor.  Whether  the  musk- 
deer,  or  the  civet-cat,  or  even  a  still  more  eloquently 
silent  animal  that  might  be  mentioned,  is  aware  of 
any  personal  peculiarity,  may  well  be  doubted.  No 
man  knows  his  own  voice  ;  many  men  do  not  know 
their  own  profiles.  Every  one  remembers  Carlyle's 
famous  "  Characteristics  "  article ;  allow  for  exag- 
gerations, and  there  is  a  great  deal  in  his  doctrine  of 
the  self-unconsciousness  of  genius.  It  comes  under 
the  great  law  just  stated.  This  incapacity  of  know- 
ing its  own  traits  is  often  found  in  the  family  as  well 
as  in  the  individual.  So  never  mind  what  your 


62     THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

cousins,  brothers,  sisters,  uncles,  aunts,  and  the  rest, 
say  about  that  fine  poem  you  have  written,  but  send 
it  (postage-paid)  to  the  editors,  if  there  are  any,  of 
the  "  Atlantic," — which,  by  the  way,  is  not  so  called 
because  it  is  a  notion,  as  some  dull  wits  wish  they 
had  said,  but  are  too  late. 

Scientific  knowledge,  even  in  the  most  modest 

persons,  has  mingled  with  it  a  something  which  par- 
takes of  insolence.  Absolute,  peremptory  facts  are 
bullies,  and  those  who  keep  company  with  them  are 
apt  to  get  a  bullying  habit  of  mind  ; — not  of  man- 
ners, perhaps  ;  they  may  be  soft  and  smooth,  but  the 
smile  they  carry  has  a  quiet  assertion  in  it,  such  as 
the  Champion  of  the  Heavy  Weights,  commonly 
the  best-natured,  but  not  the  most  diffident  of  men, 
wears  upon  what  he  very  inelegantly  calls  his 
"  mug."  Take  the  man,  for  instance,  who  deals  in 
the  mathematical  sciences.  There  is  no  elasticity 
in  a  mathematical  fact ;  if  you  bring  up  against  it, 
it  never  yields  a  hair's  breadth  ;  everything  must  go 
to  pieces  that  comes  in  collision  with  it.  What  the 
mathematician  knows  being  absolute,  unconditional, 
incapable  of  suffering  question,  it  should  tend,  in 
the  nature  of  things,  to  breed  a  despotic  way  of 
thinking.  So  of  those  who  deal  with  the  palpable 
and  often  unmistakable  facts  of  external  nature ;  only 
in  a  less  degree.  Every  probability — and  most  of 
our  common,  working  beliefs  are  probabilities — is 
provided  with  buffers  at  both  ends,  which  break  the 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.     63 

force  of  opposite  opinions  clashing  against  it;  but 
scientific  certainty  has  no  spring  in  it,  no  courtesy, 
no  possibility  of  yielding.  All  this  must  react  on 
the  minds  which  handle  these  forms  of  truth. 

Oh,  you  need  not  tell  me  that  Messrs.  A.  and 

B.  are  the  most  gracious,  unassuming  people  in  the 
world,  and  yet  preeminent  in  the  ranges  of  science  I 
am  referring  to.  I  know  that  as  well  as  you.  But 
mark  this  which  I  am  going  to  say  once  for  all :  If  I 
had  not  force  enough  to  project  a  principle  full  in 
the  face  of  the  half  dozen  most  obvious  facts  which 
seem  to  contradict  it,  I  would  think  only  in  single 
file  from  this  day  forward.  A  rash  man,  once  visit- 
ing a  certain  noted  institution  at  South  Boston, 
ventured  to  express  the  sentiment,  that  man  is  a 
rational  being.  An  old  woman  who  was  an  attendant 
in  the  Idiot  School  contradicted  the  statement,  and 
appealed  to  the  facts  before  the  speaker  to  disprove 
it.  The  rash  man  stuck  to  his  hasty  generalization, 
notwithstanding. 

[ It  is  my  desire  to  be  useful  to  those  with 

whom  I  am  associated  in  my  daily  relations.  I  not 
unfrequently  practise  the  divine  art  of  music  in  com- 
pany with  our  landlady's  daughter,  who,  as  I  men- 
tioned before,  is  the  owner  of  an  accordion.  Having 
myself  a  well-marked  barytone  voice  of  more  than 
half  an  octave  in  compass,  I  sometimes  add  my 
vocal  powers  to  her  execution  of 

"  Thou,  thou  reign'st  in  this  bosom," 


64    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

not,  however,  unless  her  mother  or  some  other  dis- 
creet female  is  present,  to  prevent  misinterpretation 
or  remark.  I  have  also  taken  a  good  deal  of  interest 
in  Benjamin  Franklin,  before  referred  to,  sometimes 
called  B.  F.,  or  more  frequently  Frank,  in  imitation 
of  that  felicitous  abbreviation,  combining  dignity 
and  convenience,  adopted  by  some  of  his  betters. 
My  acquaintance  with  the  French  language  is  very 
imperfect,  I  having  never  studied  it  anywhere  but  in 
Paris,  which  is  awkward,  as  B.  F.  devotes  himself  to 
it  with  the  peculiar  advantage  of  an  Alsacian  teacher. 
The  boy,  I  think,  is  doing  well,  between  us,  notwith- 
standing. The  following  is  an  uncorrected  French 
exercise,  written  by  this  young  gentleman.  His 
mother  thinks  it  very  creditable  to  his  abilities ; 
though,  being  unacquainted  with  the  French  lan- 
guage, her  judgment  cannot  be  considered  final. 

LE  KAT  DES  SALONS  A  LECTURE. 

CE  rat  91  est  un  animal  fort  singulier.  II  a  deux  pattes  de  der- 
riere  sur  lesquelles  il  marche,  et  deux  pattes  de  devant  dont  il  fait 
usage  pour  tenir  les  journaux.  Get  animal  a  la  peau  noire  pour  le 
plupart,  et  porte  un  cercle  blanchatre  autour  de  son  cou.  On  le 
trouve  tous  les  jours  aux  dits  salons,  ou  il  demeure,  digere,  s'il  y  a 
de  quoi  dans  son  interieur,  respire,  tousse,  eternue,  dort,  et  ronfle 
quelquefois,  ayant  toujours  le  semblant  de  lire.  On  ne  salt  pas 
s'il  a  une  autre  gite  que  ^elk.  II  a  1'air  d'une  bete  tres  stupide, 
mais  il  est  d'une  sagacite  et  d'une  vitesse  extraordinaire  quand  il 
s'agit  de  saisir  un  journal  nouveau.  On  ne  sait  pas  pourquoi  il 
lit,  parcequ'il  ne  parait  pas  avoir  des  idees.  II  vocalise  rarement, 
mais  en  revanche,  il  fait  des  bruits  nasaux  divers.  II  porte  un 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    65 

crayon  dans  une  de  ses  poches  pectorales,  avec  lequel  il  fait  des 
marques  sur  les  bords  dcs  journaux  et  des  livres,  semblable  aux 
suivans :  ! ! ! — Bah  !  Pooh  !  II  ne  fa-ut  pas  cependant  les  prendre 
pour  des  signes  d'intelligence.  II  ne  vole  pas,  ordinairement ;  il 
fait  rarement  meme  des  echanges  de  parapluie,  et  jamais  de  eha- 
peau,  parceque  son  chapeau  a  toujours  un  caract^re  specifique.  On 
ne  sait  pas  au  juste  ce  dont  il  se  nourrit.  Feu  Cuvier  etait  d'avis 
que  c'etait  de  1'odeur  du  cuir  des  reliures ;  ce  qu'on  dit  d'etre  une 
npurriture  animale  fort  saine,  et  pen  ch^re.  II  vit  bien  longtems. 
Enfin  il  meure,  en  laissant  4  ses  heritiers  une  carte  du  Salon  £ 
Lecture  ou  il  avait  existe  pendant  sa  vie.  On  pretend  qu'il  re- 
vient  toutes  les  nuits,  apres  la  mort,  visiter  le  Salon.  On  peut  le 
voir,  dit  on,  h  minuit,  dans  sa  place  habituelle,  tenant  le  journal 
du  soir,  et  ayant  &  sa  main  un  crayon  de  charbon.  Le  lendemain 
on  trouve  des  caracteres  inconnus  sur  les  bords  du  journal.  Ce 
qui  prouve  que  le  spiritualisme  est  vrai,  et  que  Messieurs  les 
Professeurs  de  Cambridge  sont  des  imbe9iles  qui  ne  savent  rien 
du  tout,  du  tout. 

I  think  this  exercise,  which  I  have  not  corrected, 
or  allowed  to  be  touched  in  any  way,  is  not  discredit- 
able to  B.  F.  You  observe  that  he  is  acquiring  a 
knowledge  of  zoology  at  the  same  time  that  he  is 
learning  French.  Fathers  of  families  in  moderate  cir- 
cumstances will  find  it  profitable  to  their  children,  and 
an  economical  mode  of  instruction,  to  set  them  to 
revising  and  amending  this  boy's  exercise.  The  pas- 
sage was  originally  taken  from  the  "  Histoire  Na- 
turelle  des  Betes  Ruminans  et  Rongeurs,  Bipedes  et 
Autres,"  lately  published  in  Paris.  This  was  trans- 
lated into  English  and  published  in  London.  It  was 
republished  at  Great  Pedlington,  with  notes  and 


66  THE  AUTOCRAT    OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

additions  by  the  American  editor.  The  notes  con- 
sist of  an  interrogation-mark  on  page  53d,  and  a 
reference  (p.  127th)  to  another  book  "  edited  "  by  the 
same  hand.  The  additions  consist  of  the  editor's 
name  on  the  title-page  and  back,  with  a  complete 
and  authentic  list  of  said  editor's  honorary  titles 
in  the  first  of  these  localities.  Our  boy  translated 
the  translation  back  into  French.  This  may  be  com- 
pared with  the  original,  to  be  found  on  Shelf  13,  Di- 
vision X,  of  the  Public  Library  of  this  metropolis.] 

Some  of  you  boarders  ask  me  from  time  to 

time  why  I  don't  write  a  story,  or  a  novel,  or  some- 
thing of  that  kind.  Instead  of  answering  each  one 
of  you  separately,  I  will  thank  you  to  step  up  into 
the  wholesale  department  for  a  few  moments,  where 
I  deal  in  answers  by  the  piece  and  by  the  bale. 

That  every  articulately-speaking  human  being  has 
in  him  stuff  for  one  novel  in  three  volumes  duodecimo 
has  long  been  with  me  a  cherished  belief.  It  has 
been  maintained,  on  the  other  hand,  that  many  per- 
sons cannot  write  more  than  one  novel, — that  all 
after  that  are  likely  to  be  failures. — Life  is  so  much 
more  tremendous  a  thing  in  its  heights  and  depths 
than  any  transcript  of  it  can  be,  that  all  records  of 
human  experience  are  as  so  many  bound  herbaria  to 
the  innumerable  glowing,  glistening,  rustling,  breath- 
ing, fragrance-laden,  poison-sucking,  life-giving, 
death-distilling  leaves  and  flowers  of  the  forest  and 
the  prairies.  All  we  can  do  with  books  of  human 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    67 

experience  is  to  make  them  alive  again  with  some- 
thing borrowed  from  our  own  lives.  We  can  make 
a  book  alive  for  us  just  in  proportion  to  its  resem- 
blance in  essence  or  in  form  to  our  own  experience. 
Now  an  author's  first  novel  is  naturally  drawn,  to 
a  great  extent,  from  his  personal  experiences  ;  that 
is,  is  a  literal  copy  of  nature  under  various  slight  dis- 
guises. But  the  moment  the  author  gets  out  of  his 
personality,  he  must  have  the  creative  power,  as  well 
as  the  narrative  art  and  the  sentiment,  in  order  to 
tell  a  living  story ;  and  this  is  rare. 

Besides,  there  is  great  danger  that  a  man's  first  life- 
story  shall  clean  him  out,  so  to  speak,  of  his  best 
thoughts.  Most  lives,  though  their  stream  is  loaded 
with  sand  and  turbid  with  alluvial  waste,  drop  a 
few  golden  grains  of  wisdom  as  they  flow  along. 
Oftentimes  a  single  cradling  gets  them  all,  and  after 
that  the  poor  man's  labor  is  only  rewarded  by  mud 
and  worn  pebbles.  All  which  proves  that  I,  as 
an  individual  of  the  human  family,  could  write  one 
novel  or  story  at  any  rate,  if  I  would. 

Why  don't  I,  then  ? — Well,  there  are  several 

reasons  against  it.  In  the  first  place,  I  should  tell  all 
my  secrets,  and  I  maintain  that  verse  is  the  proper 
medium  for  such  revelations.  Rhythm  and  rhyme 
and  the  harmonies  of  musical  language,  the  play  of 
fancy,  the  fire  of  imagination,  the  flashes  of  passion, 
so  hide  the  "nakedness  of  a  heart  laid  open,  that 
hardly  any  confession,  transfigured  in  the  luminous 


68    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

halo  of  poetry,  is  reproached  as  self-exposure.  A 
beauty  shows  herself  under  the  chandeliers,  protected 
by  the  glitter  of  her  diamonds,  with  such  a  broad 
snowdrift  of  white  arms  and  shoulders  laid  bare,  that, 
were  she  unadorned  and  in  plain  calico,  she  would 
be  unendurable — in  the  opinion  of  the  ladies. 

Again,  I  am  terribly  afraid  I  should  show  up  all 
my  friends.  I  should  like  to  know  if  all  story-tellers 
do  not  do  this  ?  Now  I  am  afraid  all  my  friends 
would  not  bear  showing  up  very  well ;  for  they  have 
an  average  share  of  the  common  weakness  of  hu- 
manity, which  I  am  pretty  certain  would  come  out. 
Of  all  that  have  told  stories  among  us  there  is  hard- 
ly one  I  can  recall  who  has  not  drawn  too  faithfully 
some  living  portrait  that  might  better  have  been 
spared. 

Once  more,  I  have  sometimes  thought  it  possible 
I  might  be  too  dull  to  write  such  a  story  as  I  should 
wish  to  write. 

And  finally,  I  think  it  very  likely  I  shall  write  a 
story  one  of  these  days.  Don't  be  surprised  at  any 
time,  if  you  see  me  coming  out  with  "  The  School- 
mistress," or  "  The  Old  Gentleman  Opposite."  [  Our 
schoolmistress  and  our  old  gentleman  that  sits  oppo- 
site had  left  the  table  before  I  said  this.]  I  want  my 
glory  for  writing  the  same  discounted  now,  on  the 
spot,  if  you  please.  I  will  write  when  I  get  ready. 
How  many  people  live  on  the  reputation  of  the  rep- 
utation they  might  have  made  ! 


THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BJREAKF AST-TABLE.          69 

1  saw  you  smiled  when  I  spoke  about  the 

possibility  of  my  being  too  dull  to  write  a  good 
story.  I  don't  pretend  to  know  what  you  meant  by 
it,  but  I  take  occasion  to  make  a  remark  which  may 
hereafter  prove  of  value  to  some  among  you. — When 
one  of  us  who  has  .been  led  by  native  vanity  or 
senseless  flattery  to  think  himself  or  herself  possessed 
of  talent  arrives  at  the  full  and  final  conclusion  that 
he  or  she  is  really  dull,  it  is  one  of  the  most  tranquil- 
lizing and  blessed  convictions  that  can  enter  a  mor- 
tal's mind.  All  our  failures,  our  short-comings,  our 
strange  disappointments  in  the  effect  of  our  efforts 
are  lifted  from  our  bruised  shoulders,  and  fall,  like 
Christian's  pack,  at  the  feet  of  that  Omnipotence 
which  has  seen  fit  to  deny  us  the  pleasant  gift  of 
high  intelligence, — with  which  one  look  may  over- 
flow us  in  some  wider  sphere  of  being. 

How  sweetly  and  honestly  one  said  to  me  the 

other  day,  "  I  hate  books !  "  A  gentleman, — singu- 
larly free  from  affectations, — not  learned,  of  course, 
but  of  perfect  breeding,  which  is  often  so  much 
better  than  learning, — by  no  means  dull,  in  the  sense 
of  knowledge  of  the  world  and  society,  but  certainly 
not  clever  either  in  the  arts  or  sciences, — his  com- 
pany is  pleasing  to  all  who  know  him.  I  did  not 
recognize  in  him  inferiority  of  literary  taste  half  so 
distinctly  as  I  did  simplicity  of  character  and  fearless 
acknowledgment  of  his  inaptitude  for  scholarship. 
In  fact,  I  think  there  are  a  grreat  many  gentlemen 


70          THE   AUTOCRAT   OF    THE   BEE AKFAST-T ABLE. 

and  others,  who  read  with  a  mark  to  keep  their 
place,  that  really  "  hate  books,"  but  never  had  the 
wit  to  find  it  out,  or  the  manliness  to  own  it.  [Entre 
nous,  I  always  read  with  a  mark.] 

We  get  into  a  way  of  thinking  as  if  what  we 
call  an  "  intellectual  man "  was,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  made  up  of  nine-tenths,  or  thereabouts,  of 
book-learning,  and  one-tenth  himself.  But  even  if 
he  is  actually  so  compounded,  he  need  not  read 
much.  Society  is  a  strong  solution  of  books.  It 
draws  the  virtue  out  of  what  is  best  worth  reading, 
as  hot  water  draws  the  strength  of  tea-leaves.  If  I 
were  a  prince,  I  would  hire  or  buy  a  private  literary 
tea-pot,  in  which  I  would  steep  all  the  leaves  of  new 
books  that  promised  well.  The  infusion  would  do 
for  me  without  the  vegetable  fibre.  You  understand 
me  ;  I  would  have  a  person  whose  sole  business 
should  be  to  read  day  and  night,  and  talk  to  me 
whenever  I  wanted  him  to.  I  know  the  man  I 
would  have :  a  quick-witted,  out-spoken,  incisive 
fellow ;  knows  history,  or  at  any  rate  has  a  shelf  full 
of  books  about  it,  which  he  can  use  handily,  and  the 
same  of  all  useful  arts  and  sciences ;  knows  all  the 
common  plots  of  plays  and  novels,  and  the  stock 
company  of  characters  that  are  continually  coming 
on  in  new  costume ;  can  give  you  a  criticism  of  an 
octavo  in  an  epithet  and  a  wink,  and  you  can  de- 
pend on  it ;  cares  for  nobody  except  for  the  virtue 
there  is  in  what  he  says  ;  delights  in  taking  off  big 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    71 

wigs  and  professional  gowns,  and  in  the  disembalm- 
ing  and  unbandaging  of  all  literary  mummies.  Yet 
he  is  as  tender  and  reverential  to  all  that  bears  the 
mark  of  genius, — that  is,  of  a  new  influx  of  truth  or 
beauty, — as  a  nun  over  her  missal.  In  short,  he 
is  one  of  those  men  that  know  everything  except 
how  to  make  a  living.  Him  would  I  keep  on  the 
square  next  my  own  royal  compartment  on  life's 
chessboard.  To  him  I  would  push  up  another  pawn, 
in  the  shape  of  a  comely  and  wise  young  woman, 
whom  he  would  of  course  take — to  wife.  For  all 
contingencies  I  would  liberally  provide.  In  a  word, 
I  would,  in  the  plebeian,  but  expressive  phrase,  "  put 
him  through  "  all  the  material  part  of  life ;  see  him 
sheltered,  warmed,  fed,  button-mended,  and  all  that, 
just  to  be  able  to  lay  on  his  talk  when  I  liked, — with 
the  privilege  of  shutting  it  off  at  will. 

A  Club  is  the  next  best  thing  to  this,  strung  like 
a  harp,  with  about  a  dozen  ringing  intelligences, 
each  answering  to  some  chord  of  the  macrocosm. 
They  do  well  to  dine  together  once  in  a  while.  A 
dinner-party  made  up  of  such  elements  is  the  last 
triumph  of  civilivation  over  barbarism.  Nature  and 
art  combine  to  charm  the  senses ;  the  equatorial  zone 
of  the  system  is  soothed  by  well-studied  artifices; 
the  faculties  are  off  duty,  and  fall  into  their  natural 
attitudes ;  you  see  wisdom  in  slippers  and  science  in 
a  short  jacket. 

The  whole  force  of  conversation  depends  on  how 


72    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

much  you  can  take  for  granted.  Vulgar  chess- 
players have  to  play  their  game  out ;  nothing  short 
of  the  brutality  of  an  actual  checkmate  satisfies  their 
dull  apprehensions.  But  look  at  two  masters  of  that 
noble  game !  White  stands  well  enough,  so  far  as 
you  can  see ;  but  Red  says,  Mate  in  six  moves ; — 
White  looks, — nods ; — the  game  is  over.  Just  so  in 
talking  with  first-rate  men;  especially  when  they 
are  good-natured  and  expansive,  as  they  are  apt  to 
be  at  table.  That  blessed  clairvoyance  which  sees 
into  things  without  opening  them, — that  glorious 
license,  which,  having  shut  the  door  and  driven  the 
reporter  from  its  key-hole,  calls  upon  Truth,  majestic 
virgin !  to  get  off  from  her  pedestal  and  drop  her 
academic  poses,  and  take  a  festive  garland  and  the 
vacant  place  on  the  medius  lectus, — that  carnival- 
shower  of  questions  and  replies  and  comments, 
large  axioms  bowled  over  the  mahogany  like  bomb- 
shells from  professional  mortars,  and  explosive  wit 
dropping  its  trains  of  many-colored  fire,  and  the 
mischief-making  rain  of  bon-bons  pelting  everybody 
that  shows  himself, — the  picture  of  a  truly  intellec- 
tual banquet  is  one  which  the  old  Divinities  might 
well  have  attempted  to  reproduce  in  their 

"  Oh,  oh,  oh !  "  cried  the  young  fellow  whom 

they  call  John, — "  that  is  from  one  of  your  lectures ! " 

I  know  it,  I  replied, — I  concede  it,  I  confess  it,  I 
proclaim  it. 

"  The  trail  of  the  serpent  is  over  them  all  I " 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    73 

All  lecturers,  all  professors,  all  schoolmasters,  have 
ruts  and  grooves  in  their  minds  into  which  their  con- 
versation is  perpetually  sliding.  Did  you  never,  in 
riding  through  the  woods  of  a  still  June  evening, 
suddenly  feel  that  you  had  passed  into  a  warm  stra- 
1  um  of  air,  and  in  a  minute  or  two  strike  the  chill 
layer  of  atmosphere  beyond?  Did  you  never,  in 
cleaving  the  green  waters  of  the  Back  Bay, — where 
the  Provincial  blue-noses  are  in  the  habit  of  beating 
the  "  Metropolitan "  boat-clubs, — find  yourself  in  a 
tepid  streak,  a  narrow,  local  gulf-stream,  a  gratuitous 
warm-bath  a  little  underdone,  through  which  your 
glistening  shoulders  soon  flashed,  to  bring  you  back 
to  the  cold  realities  of  full-sea  temperature  ?  Just 
so,  in  talking  with  any  of  the  characters  above  re- 
ferred to,  one  not  unfrequently  finds  a  sudden  change 
in  the  style  of  the  conversation.  The  lack-lustre  eye, 
rayless  as  a  Beacon-Street  door-plate  in  August,  all 
at  once  fills  with  light;  the  face  flings  itself  wide 
open  like  the  church -portals  when  the  bride  and 
bridegroom  enter ;  the  little  man  grows  in  stature 
before  your  eyes,  like  the  small  prisoner  with  hair  on 
end.  beloved  yet  dreaded  of  early  childhood;  you 
were  talking  with  a  dwarf  and  an  imbecile, — you 
have  a  giant  and  a  trumpet-tongued  angel  before 

you ! Nothing  but  a  streak  out  of  a  fifty-dollar 

lecture. As  when,  at  some  unlooked-for  moment, 

the  mighty  fountain-column  springs  into  the  air  be- 
fore the  astonished  passer-by, — silver-footed,  dia- 


74    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

mond-crowned,  rainbow-scarfed, — from  the  bosom 
of  that  fair  sheet,  sacred  to  the  hymns  of  quiet  batra- 
chians  at  home,  and  the  epigrams  of  a  less  amiable 
and  less  elevated  order  of  reptilia  in  other  latitudes. 

Who  was  that  person  that  was  so  abused 

some  time  since  for  saying  that  in  the  conflict  of  two 
races  our  sympathies  naturally  go  with  the  higher  ? 
No  matter  who  he  was.  Now  look  at  what  is  going 
on  in  India, — a  white,  superior  "  Caucasian  "  race, 
against  a  dark-skinned,  inferior,  but  still  "  Caucasian  " 
race, — and  where  are  English  and  American  sympa- 
thies ?  We  can't  stop  to  settle  all  the  doubtful 
questions ;  all  we  know  is,  that  the  brute  nature  is 
sure  to  come  out  most  strongly  in  the  lower  race,  and 
it  is  the  general  law  that  the  human  side  of  humanity 
should  treat  the  brutal  side  as  it  does  the  same  nature 
in  the  inferior  animals, — tame  it  or  crush  it.  The 
India  mail  brings  stories  of  women  and  children 
outraged  and  murdered ;  the  royal  stronghold  is  in 
the  hands  of  the  babe-killers.  England  takes  down 
the  Map  of  the  World,  which  she  has  girdled  with 
empire,  and  makes  a  correction  thus  :  DuLiiii  Dele. 
The  civilized  world  says,  Amen. 

Do  not  think,  because  I  talk  to  you  of  many 

subjects  briefly,  that  I  should  not  find  it  much  lazier 
work  to  take  each  one  of  them  and  dilute  it  down 
to  an  essay.  Borrow  some  of  my  old  college  themes 
and  water  my  remarks  to  suit  yourselves,  as  the 
Homeric  heroes  did  with  their  melas  oinos, — that 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    75 

black  sweet,  syrupy  wine  (?)  which  they  used  to 
alloy  with  three  parts  or  more  of  the  flowing  stream. 
[Could  it  have  been  melasses,  as  Webster  and  his 
provincials  spell  it, — or  Molosstfs,  as  dear  old  smat- 
tering, chattering,  would-be- College-President,  Cot- 
ton Mather,  has  it  in  the  "  Magnalia "  ?  Ponder 
thereon,  ye  small  antiquaries  who  make  barn- 
door-fowl flights  of  learning  in  "  Notes  and  Queries ! " 
— ye  Historical  Societies,  in  one  of  whose  venerable 
triremes  I,  too,  ascend  the  stream  of  time,  while 
other  hands  tug  at  the  oars! — ye  Amines  of  parasiti- 
cal literature,  who  pick  up  your  grains  of  native- 
grown  food  with  a  bodkin,  having  gorged  upon  less 
honest  fare,  until,  like  the  great  minds  Goethe 
speaks  of,  you  have  "  made  a  Golgotha "  of  your 
pages ! — ponder  thereon  !] 

Before  you  go,  this  morning,  I  want  to  read 

you  a  copy  of  verses.  You  will  understand  by  the 
title  that  they  are  written  in  an  imaginary  character. 
I  don't  doubt  they  will  fit  some  family-man  well 
enough.  I  send  it  forth  as  "  Oak  Hall "  projects  a 
coat,  on  a  priori  grounds  of  conviction  that  it  will 
suit  somebody.  There  is  no  loftier  illustration  of 
faith  than  this.  It  believes  that  a  soul  has  been  clad 
in  flesh ;  that  tender  parents  have  fed  and  nurtured 
it ;  that  its  mysterious  compares  or  frame- work  has 
survived  its  myriad  exposures  and  reached  the  stature 
of  maturity ;  that  the  Man,  now  self-determining,  has 
given  in  his  adhesion  to  the  traditions  and  habits  of 


76    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

the  race  in  favor  of  artificial  clothing ;  that  he  will, 
having  all  the  world  to  choose  from,  select  the  very 
locality  where  this  audacious  generalization  has  been 
acted  upon.  It  builds  a  garment  cut  to  the  pattern 
of  an  Idea,  and  trusts  that  Nature  will  model  a  ma- 
terial shape  to  fit  it.  There  is  a  prophecy  in  every 
seam,  and  its  pockets  are  full  of  inspiration. — Now 
hear  the  verses. 

THE   OLD  MAN  DREAMS. 

O  for  one  hour  of  youthful  joy ! 

Give  back  my  twentieth  spring  I 
I'd  rather  laugh  a  bright-haired  boy 

Than  reign  a  gray-beard  king ! 

Off  with  the  wrinkled  spoils  of  age  I 

Away  with  learning's  crown  ! 
Tear  out  life's  wisdom-written  page, 

And  dash  its  trophies  down ! 

One  moment  let  my  life-blood  stream 

From  boyhood's  fount  of  flame  1 
Give  me  one  giddy,  reeling  dream 

Of  life  all  love  and  fame  ! 

~My  listening  angel  heard  the  prayer, 

And  calmly  smiling,  said, 
"  If  I  but  touch  thy  silvered  hair, 

Thy  hasty  wish  hath  sped. 

"  But  is  there  nothing  in  thy  track 
To  bid  thee  fondly  stay, 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    77 

While  the  swift  seasons  hurry  back 
To  find  the  wished-for  day  ?  " 

— Ah,  truest  soul  of  womankind  1 

Without  thee,  what  were  life  ? 
One  bliss  I  cannot  leave  behind  : 

I'll  take — my — precious — wife  ! 

— The  angel  took  a  sapphire  pen 

And  wrote  in  rainbow  dew, 
"  The  man  would  be  a  boy  again, 

And  be  a  husband  too ! " 

—  "And  is  there  nothing  yet  unsaid 

Before  the  change  appears  ? 
Remember,  all  their  gifts  have  fled 

With  those  dissolving  years  1 " 

Why,  yes ;  for  memory  would  recall 

My  fond  paternal  joys ; 
I  could  not  bear  to  leave  them  all ; 

I'll  take — my — girl — and — boys  1 

The  smiling  angel  dropped  his  pen, — 

"  Why  this  will  never  do  ; 
The  man  would  be  a  boy  again, 

And  be  a  father  too ! " 

And  so  I  laughed, — my  laughter  woke 

The  household  with  its  noise, — 
And  wrote  my  dream,  when  morning  broke, 

To  please  the  gray-haired  boys. 


78    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 


IV. 

[I  AM  so  well  pleased  with  my  boarding-house  that 
I  intend  to  remain  there,  perhaps  for  years.  Of 
course  I  shall  have  a  great  many  conversations  to 
report,  and  they  will  necessarily  be  of  different  tone 
and  on  different  subjects.  The  talks  are  like  the 
breakfasts, — sometimes  dipped  toast,  and  sometimes 
dry.  You  must  take  them  as  they  come.  How  can 
I  do  what  all  these  letters  ask  me  to?  No.  1. 
want  serious  and  earnest  thought.  No.  2.  (letter 
smells  of  bad  cigars)  must  have  more  jokes  ;  wants 
me  to  tell  a  "  good  storey  "  which  he  has  copied  out 
for  me.  (I  suppose  two  letters  before  the  word 
"  good  "  refer  to  some  Doctor  of  Divinity  who  told 
the  story.)  No.  3.  (in  female  hand) — more  poetry. 
No.  4.  wants  something  that  would  be  of  use  to  a 
practical  man.  (Prahctical  mahn  he  probably  pro- 
nounces it.)  No.  5.  (gilt-edged,  sweet-scented) — 
"  more  sentiment," — "  heart's  outpourings." 

My  dear  friends,  one  and  all,  I  can  do  nothing  but 
report  such  remarks  as  I  happen  to  have  made  at 
our  breakfast-table.  Their  character  will  depend  on 
many  accidents, — a  good  deal  on  the  particular  per- 
sons in  the  company  to  whom  they  were  addressed. 
It  so  happens  that  those  which  follow  were  mainly 
intended  for  the  divinity-student  and  the  school- 
mistress ;  though  others,  whom  I  need  not  mention, 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    79 

saw  fit  to  interfere,  with  more  or  less  propriety,  in 
the  conversation.  This  is  one  of  my  privileges  as  a 
talker  ;  and  of  course,  if  I  was  not  talking  for  our 
whole  company,  I  don't  expect  all  the  readers  of  this 
periodical  to  be  interested  in  my  notes  of  what 
was  said.  Still,  I  think  there  may  be  a  few  that 
will  rather  like  this  vein, — possibly  prefer  it  to  a  live- 
lier one, — serious  young  men,  and  young  women 

generally,  in  life's  roseate  parenthesis  from  

years  of  age  to inclusive. 

Another  privilege  of  talking  is  to  misquote. — Of 
course  it  wasn't  Proserpina  that  actually  cut  the  yel- 
low hahy^but  Iris.  (As  I  have  since  told  you)  it 
was  the  former  lady's  regular  business,  but  Dido  had 
used  herself  ungenteelly,  and  Madame  d'Enfer  stood 
firm  on  the  point  of  etiquette.  So  the  bathycolpian 
Here — Juno,  in  Latin — sent  down  Iris  instead.  But 
I  was  mightily  pleased  to  see  that  one  of  the  gentle- 
men that  do  the  heavy  articles  for  the  celebrated 
"  Oceanic  Miscellany  "  misquoted  Campbell's  line 
without  any  excuse.  "  Waft  us  home  the  message  " 
of  course  it  ought  to  be.  Will  he  be  duly  grateful 
for  the  correction  ?] 

The  more  we  study  the  body  and  the  mind, 

the  more  we  find  both  to  be  governed,  not  by,  but 
according1  to  laws,  such  as  we  observe  in  the  larger 
universe. — You  think  you  know  all  about  walking^ — 
don't  you,  now  ?  Well,  how  do  you  suppose  your 
ower  limbs  are  held  to  your  body  ?  They  are 


80    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

sucked  up  by  two  cupping  vessels,  ("  cotyloid  " — 
cup-like — cavities,)  and  held  there  as  long  as  you 
Jive,  and  longer.  At  any  rate,  you  think  you  move 
them  backward  and  forward  at  such  a  rate  as  your 
will  determines,  don't  you  ?  On  the  contrary,  they 
swing  just  as  any  other  pendulums  swing,  at  a  fixed 
rate,  determined  by  their  length.  You  can  alter  this 
by  muscular  power,  as  you  can  take  hold  of  the  pen- 
dulum of  a  clock  and  make  it  move  faster  or  slower ; 
but  your  ordinary  gait  is  timed  by  the  same  mech- 
anism as  the  movements  of  the  solar  system. 

[My  friend,  the  Professor,  told  me  all  this,  referring 
me  to  certain  German  physiologists  by  the  name  of 
Weber  for  proof  of  the  facts,  which,  however,  he 
said  he  had  often  verified.  I  appropriated  it  to  my 
own  use ;  what  can  one  do  better  than  this,  when 
one  has  a  friend  that  tells  him  anything  worth  re- 
membering ? 

The  Professor  seems  to  think  that  man  and  the 
general  powers  of  the  universe  are  in  partnership. 
Some  one  was  saying  that  it  had  cost  nearly  half  a 
million  to  move  the  Leviathan  only  so  far  as  they 
had  got  it  already. — Why, — said  the  Professor, — 
they  might  have  hired  an  EARTHQUAKE  for  less 
money !] 

Just  as  we  find  a  mathematical  rule  at  the  bottom 
of  many  of  the  bodily  movements,  just  so  thought 
may  be  supposed  to  have  its  regular  cycles.  Such 
or  such  a  thought  comes  round  periodically,  in  its 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    81 

turn.  Accidental  suggestions,  however,  so  far  inter- 
fere with  the  regular  cycles,  that  we  may  find  them 
practically  beyond  our  power  of  recognition.  Take 
all  this  for  what  it  is  worth,  but  at  any  rate  you  will 
agree  that  there  are  certain  particular  thoughts  that 
do  not  come  up  once  a  day,  nor  once  a  week,  but 
that  a  year  would  hardly  go  round  without  your 
having  them  pass  through  your  mind.  Here  is  one 
which  comes  up  at  intervals  in  this  way.  Some  one 
speaks  of  it,  and  there  is  an  instant  and  eager  smile 
of  assent  in  the  listener  or  listeners.  Yes,  indeed  ; 
they  have  often  been  struck  by  it. 

All  at  once  a  conviction  flashes  through  us  that  we 
have  been  in  the  same  precise  circumstances  as  at  the 
present  instant,  once  or  many  times  before. 

O,  dear,  yes  ! — said  one  of  the  company, — every- 
body has  had  that  feeling. 

The  landlady  didn't  know  anything  about  such 
notions  ;  it  was  an  idee  in  folks'  heads,  she  expected. 

The  schoolmistress  said,  in  a  hesitating  sort  of 
way,  that  she  knew  the  feeling  well,  and  didn't  like 
to  experience  it ;  it  made  her  think  she  was  a  ghost, 
sometimes. 

The  young  fellow  whom  they  call  John  said  he 
knew  all  about  it ;  he  had  just  lighted  a  cheroot  the 
other  day,  when  a  tremendous  conviction  all  at  once 
came  over  him  that  he  had  done  just  that  same  thing 
ever  so  many  times  before.  I  looked  severely  at 
him,  and  his  countenance  immediately  fell — on  the 
4* 


82     THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

side  toward  me ;  I  cannot  answer  for  the  other,  for 
he  can  wink  and  laugh  with  either  half  of  his  face 
without  the  other  half's  knowing  it. 

1  have  noticed — I  went  on  to  say — the  fol- 
lowing circumstances  connected  with  these  sudden 
impressions.  First,  that  the  condition  which  seems 
to  be  the  duplicate  of  a  former  one  is  often  very 
trivial, — one  that  might  have  presented  itself  a  hun- 
dred times.  Secondly,  that  the  impression  is  very 
evanescent,  and  that  it  is  rarely,  if  ever,  recalled  by 
any  voluntary  effort,  at  least  after  any  time  has 
elapsed.  Thirdly,  that  there  is  a  disinclination  to 
record  the  circumstances,  and  a  sense  of  incapacity 
to  reproduce  the  state  of  mind  in  words.  Fourthly, 
I  have  often  felt  that  the  duplicate  condition  had  not 
only  occurred  once  before,  but  that  it  was  familiar 
and,  as  it  seemed,  habitual.  Lastly,  I  have  had  the 
same  convictions  in  my  dreams. 

How  do  I  account  for  it  ? — Why,  there  are  several 
ways  that  I  can  mention,  and  you  may  take  your 
choice.  The  first  is  that  which  the  young  lady 
hinted  at; — that  these  flashes  are  sudden  recollec- 
tions of  a  previous  existence.  I  don't  believe  that ; 
for  I  remember  a  poor  student  I  used  to  know  told 
me  he  had  such  a  conviction  one  day  when  he  was 
blacking  his  boots,  and  I  can't  think  he  had  ever 
lived  in  another  world  where  they  use  Day  and  Mar- 
tin. 

Some  think  that  Dr.  Wigan's  doctrine  of  the  brain's 


THE  AUTOCKAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    83 

being  a  double  organ,  its  hemispheres  working  to- 
gether like  the  two  eyes,  accounts  for  it.  One  of 
the  hemispheres  hangs  fire,  they  suppose,  and  the 
small  interval  between  the  perceptions  of  the  nimble 
and  the  sluggish  half  seems  an  indefinitely  long 
period,  and  therefore  the  second  perception  appears 
to  be  the  copy  of  another,  ever  so  old.  But  even  al- 
lowing the  centre  of  perception  to  be  double,  I  can  see 
no  good  reason  for  supposing  this  indefinite  length- 
ening of  the  time,  nor  any  analogy  that  bears  it  out. 
It  seems  to  me  most  likely  that  the  coincidence  of 
circumstances  is  very  partial,  but  that  we  take  this 
partial  resemblance  for  identity,  as  we  occasionally 
do  resemblances  of  persons.  A  momentary  posture 
of  circumstances  is  so  far  like  some  preceding  one 
that  we  accept  it  as  exactly  the  same,  just  as  we 
accost  a  stranger  occasionally,  mistaking  him  for  a 
friend.  The  apparent  similarity  may  be  owing  per- 
haps, quite  as  much  to  the  mental  state  at  the  time, 
as  to  the  outward  circumstances. 

Here  is  another  of  these  curiously  recurring 

remarks.  I  have  said  it,  and  heard  it  many  times, 
and  occasionally  met  with  something  like  it  in  books, 
— somewhere  in  Bulwer's  novels,  I  think,  and  in  one 
of  the  works  of  Mr.  Olmsted,  I  know. 

Memory^  imagination,  old  sentiments  and  associa- 
tions^ are  more  readily  readied  through  the  sense  of 
SMELL  than  by  almost  any  other  channel. 

Of  course  the  particular  odors  which    act   upon 


84    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

each  person's  susceptibilities  differ. — O,  yes !  I  will 
tell  you  some  of  mine.  The  smell  of  phosphorus  is 
one  of  them.  During  a  year  or  two  of  adolescence 
I  used  to  be  dabbling  in  chemistry  a  good  deal,  and 
as  about  that  time  I  had  my  little  aspirations  and 
passions  like  another,  some  of  these  things  got  mixed 
up  with  each  other:  orange-colored  fumes  of  nitrous 
acid,  and  visions  as  bright  and  transient ;  reddening 
litmus-paper,  and  blushing  cheeks  ; — eheu! 

"  Soles  occidere  et  redire  possunt," 

but  there  is  no  reagent  that  will  redden  the  faded 

roses    of  eighteen   hundred   and  spare   them! 

But,  as  I  was  saying,  phosphorus  fires  this  train  of 
associations  in  an  instant ;  its  luminous  vapors  with 
their  penetrating  odor  throw  me  into  a  trance  ;  it 
comes  to  me  in  a  double  sense  "  trailing  clouds  of 
glory."  Only  the  confounded  Vienna  matches,  ohne 
phosphor-geruch,  have  worn  my  sensibilities  a  little. 

Then  there  is  the  mangold.  When  I  was  of 
smallest  dimensions,  and  wont  to  ride  impacted 
between  the  knees  of  fond  parental  pair,  we  would 
sometimes  cross  the  bridge  to  the  next  village-town 
and  stop  opposite  a  low,  brown,  "  gambrel -roofed " 
cottage.  Out  of  it  would  come  one  Sally,  sister  of 
its  swarthy  tenant,  swarthy  herself,  shady-lipped,  sad- 
voiced,  and,  bending  over  her  flower-bed,  would 
gather  a  "  posy,"  as  she  called  it,  for  the  little  boy. 
Sally  lies' in  the  churchyard  with  a  slab  of  blue  slate 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    85 

at  her  head,  lichen-crusted,  and  leaning  a  little  within 
the  last  few  years.  Cottage,  garden-beds,  posies, 
grenadier-like  rows  of  seedling  onions, — stateliest  of 
vegetables, — all  are  gone,  but  the  breath  of  a  mari- 
gold brings  them  all  back  to  me. 

Perhaps  the  herb  everlasting,  the  fragrant  immor- 
telle of  our  autumn  fields,  has  the  most  suggestive 
odor  to  me  of  all  those  that  set  me  dreaming.  I  can 
hardly  describe  the  strange  thoughts  and  emotions 
that  come  to  me  as  I  inhale  the  aroma  of  its  pale, 
dry,  rustling  flowers.  A  something  it  has  of  sepul- 
chral spicery,  as  if  it  had  been  brought  from  the  core 
of  some  great  pyramid,  where  it  had  lain  on  the 
breast  of  a  mummied  Pharaoh.  Something,  too,  of 
immortality  in  the  sad,  faint  sweetness  lingering  so 
long  in  its  lifeless  petals.  Yet  this  does  not  tell  why 
it  fills  my  eyes  with  tears  and  carries  me  in  blissful 
thought  to  the  banks  of  asphodel  that  border  the 
River  of  Life. 

1  should  not  have  talked  so  much  about  these 

personal  susceptibilities,  if  I  had  not  a  remark  to 
make  about  them  which  I  believe  is  a  new  one.  It  is 
this.  There  may  be  a  physical  reason  for  the  strange 
connection  between  the  sense  of  smell  and  the  mind. 
The  olfactory  nerve — so  my  friend,  the  Professor,  tells 
me — is  the  only  one  directly  connected  with  the  hem- 
ispheres of  the  brain,  the  parts  in  which,  as  we  have 
every  reason  to  believe,  the  intellectual  processes  are 
performed.  To  speak  more  truly,  the  olfactory 


86    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

"  nerve  "  is  not  a  nerve  at  all,  he  says,  but  a  part  of 
the  brain,  in  intimate  connection  with  its  anterior 
lobes.  Whether  this  anatomical  arrangement  is  at 
the  bottom  of  the  facts  I  have  mentioned,  I  will  not 
decide,  but  it  is  curious  enough  to  be  worth  remem- 
bering. Contrast  the  sense  of  taste,  as  a  source  of 
suggestive  impressions,  with  that  of  smell.  Now 
the  Professor  assures  me  that  you  will  find  the  nerve 
of  taste  has  no  immediate  connection  with  the  brain 
proper,  but  only  with  the  prolongation  of  the  spinal 
cord. 

[The  old  gentleman  opposite  did  not  pay  much 
attention,  I  think,  to  this  hypothesis  of  mine.  But 
while  I  was  speaking  about  the  sense  of  smell  he 
nestled  about  in  his  seat,  and  presently  succeeded  in 
getting  out  a  large  red  bandanna  handkerchief. 
Then  he  lurched  a  little  to  the  other  side,  and  after 
much  tribulation  at  last  extricated  an  ample  round 
snuff-box.  I  looked  as  he  opened  it  and  felt  for  the 
wonted  pugil.  Moist  rappee,  and  a  Tonka-bean 
lying  therein.  I  made  the  manual  sign  understood 
of  all  mankind  that  use  the  precious  dust,  and 
presently  my  brain,  too,  responded  to  the  long  unused 

stimulus. O  boys, — that  were, — actual  papas  and 

possible  grandpapas, — some  of  you  with  crowns 
like  billiard-balls, — some  in  locks  of  sable  silvered, 
and  some  of  silver  sabled, — do  you  remember,  as  you 
doze  over  this,  those  after-dinners  at  the  Trois  Freres, 
when  the  Scotch-plaided  snuff-box  went  round,  and 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    §7 

the  dry  Lundy-Foot  tickled  its  way  along  into  our 
happy  sensoria  ?  Then  it  was  that  the  Chambertin 
or  the  Clos  Vougeot  came  in,  slumbering  in  its  straw 
cradle.  And  one  among  you, — do  you  remember 
how  he  would  have  a  bit  of  ice  always  in  his  Bur- 
gundy, and  sit  tinkling  it  against  the  sides  of  the 
bubble-like  glass,  saying  that  he  was  hearing  the 
cow-bells  as  he  used  to  hear  them,  when  the  deep- 
breathing  kine  came  home  at  twilight  from  the 
huckleberry  pasture,  in  the  old  home  a  thousand 
leagues  towards  the  sunset?] 

Ah  me!  what  strains  and  strophes  of  unwritten 
verse  pulsate  through  my  soul  when  I  open  a  certain 
closet  in  the  ancient  house  where  I  was  born  !  On 
its  shelves  used  to  lie  bundles  of  sweet- marjoram 
and  pennyroyal  and  lavender  and  mint  and  catnip ; 
there  apples  were  stored  until  their  seeds  should  grow 
black,  which  happy  period  there  were  sharp  little 
milk-teeth  always  ready  to  anticipate ;  there  peaches 
lay  in  the  dark,  thinking  of  the  sunshine  they  had 
lost,  until,  like  the  hearts  of  saints  that  dream  of 
heaven  in  their  sorrow,  they  grew  fragrant  as  the 
breath  of  angels.  The  odorous  echo  of  a  score  of 
dead  summers  lingers  yet  in  those  dim  recesses. 

Do  I  remember  Byron's  line  about  "  striking 

the  electric  chain  "  ? — To  be  sure  I  do.  I  sometimes 
think  the  less  the  hint  that  stirs  the  automatic  ma- 
chinery of  association,  the  more  easily  this  moves  us. 
What  can  be  more  trivial  than  that  old  story  of 


88    THE  AUTOCKAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

opening  the  folio  Shakspeare  that  nsed  to  lie  in  some 
ancient  English  hall  and  finding  the  flakes  of  Christ- 
mas pastry  between  its  leaves,  shut  up  in  them  per- 
haps a  hundred  years  ago  ?  And,  lo  !  as  one  looks  on 
these  poor  relics  of  a  bygone  generation,  the  universe 
changes  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  ;  old  George  the 
Second  is  back  again,  and  the  elder  Pitt  is  coming 
into  power,  and  General  Wolfe  is  a  fine,  promising 
young  man,  and  over  the  Channel  they  are  pulling 
the  Sieur  Damiens  to  pieces  with  wild  horses,  and 
across  the  Atlantic  the  Indians  are  tomahawking 
Hirams  and  Jonathans  and  Jonases  at  Fort  William 
Henry ;  all  the  dead  people  who  have  been  in  the 
dust  so  long — even  to  the  stout-armed  cook  that 
made  the  pastry — are  alive  again ;  the  planet  un- 
winds a  hundred  of  its  luminous  coils,  and  the  pre- 
cession of  the  equinoxes  is  retraced  on  the  dial  of 
heaven !  And  all  this  for  a  bit  of  pie-crust ! 

1  will  thank  you  for  that  pie, — said  the  pro- 
voking young  fellow  whom  I  have  named  repeatedly. 
He  looked  at  it  for  a  moment,  and  put  his  hands  to 
his  eyes  as  if  moved. — I  was  thinking, — he  said  in- 
distinctly  

How?  What  is't? — said  our  landlady. 

1  was  thinking — said  he — who  was  king  of 

England  when  this  old  pie  was  baked, — and  it  made 
me  feel  bad  to  think  how  long  he  must  have  been 
dead. 

[Our  landlady  is  a  decent  body,  poor,  and  a  widow, 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    89 

of  course  ;  celd  va  sans  dire.  She  told  me  her  story 
once  ;  it  was  as  if  a  grain  of  corn  that  had  been 
ground  and  bolted  had  tried  to  individualize  itself  by 
a  special  narrative.  There  was  the  wooing  and  the 
wedding, — the  start  in  life, — the  disappointment, — 
the  children  she  had  buried, — the  struggle  against 
fate, — the  dismantling  of  life,  first  of  its  small  lux- 
uries, and  then  of  its  comforts, — the  broken  spirits, — 
the  altered  character  of  the  one  on  whom  she  leaned, 
— and  at  last  the  death  that  came  and  drew  the  black 
curtain  between  her  and  all  her  earthly  hopes. 

I  never  laughed  at  my  landlady  after  she  had  told 
me  her  story,  but  I  often  cried, — not  those  pattering 
tears  that  run  off  the  eaves  upon  our  neighbors' 
grounds,  the  stillicidium  of  self-conscious  sentiment, 
but  those  which  steal  noiselessly  through  their  con- 
duits until  they  reach  the  cisterns  lying  round  about 
the  heart ;  those  tears  that  we  weep  inwardly  with 
unchanging  features ; — such  I  did  shed  for  her  often 
when  the  imps  of  the  boarding-house  Inferno  tugged 
at  her  soul  with  their  red-hot  pincers.] 

Young  man, — I  said, — the  pasty  you  speak  lightly 
of  is  not  old,  but  courtesy  to  those  who  labor  to  serve 
us,  especially  if  they  are  of  the  weaker  sex,  is  very 
old,  and  yet  well  worth  retaining.  May  I  recommend 
to  you  the  following  caution,  as  a  guide,  whenever 
you  are  dealing  with  a  woman,  or  an  artist,  or  a  poet; 
— if  you  are  handling  an  editor  or  politician,  it  is  su- 
perfluous advice.  I  take  it  from  the  back  of  one  of 


90    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

those  little  French  toys  which  contain  pasteboard 
figures  moved  by  a  small  running  stream  of  fine 
sand;  Benjamin  Franklin  will  translate  it  for  you: 
"  Quoiqu'elle  soit  tres  solidemcnt  montee,  Ufa/at  ne  pas 
BRUTALISER  la  machine" — I  will  thank  you  for  the 
pie,  if  you  please. 

[I  took  more  of  it  than  was  good  for  me, — as 
much  as  85°,  T  should  think, — and  had  an  indiges- 
tion in  consequence.  While  I  was  suffering  from  it, 
I  wrote  some  sadly  desponding  poems,  and  a  theo- 
logical essay  which  took  a  very  melancholy  view  of 
creation.  When  I  got  better  I  labelled  them  all 
"  Pie-crust,"  and  laid  them  by  as  scarecrows  and 
solemn,  warnings.  I  have  a  number  of  books  on  my 
shelves  that  I  should  like  to  label  with  some  such 
title ;  but,  as  they  have  great  names  on  their  title- 
pages, —  Doctors  of  Divinity,  some  of  them,  —  it 
wouldn't  do.] 

My  friend,  the  Professor,  whom  I  have  men- 
tioned to  you  once  or  twice,  told  me  yesterday  that 
somebody  had  been  abusing  him  in  some  of  the  jour- 
nals of  his  calling.  I  told  him  that  I  didn't  doubt 
he  deserved  it ;  that  I  hoped  he  did  deserve  a  little 
abuse  occasionally,  and  would  for  a  number  of  years 
to  come ;  that  nobody  could  do  anything  to  make 
his  neighbors  wiser  or  better  without  being  liable  to 
abuse  for  it;  especially  that  people  hated  to  have 
their  little  mistakes  made  fun  of,  and  perhaps  he  had 
been  doing  something  of  the  kind. — The  Professor 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    91 

smiled. — Now,  said  I,  hear  what  I  am  going  to  say. 
It  will  not  take  many  years  to  bring  you  to  the  period 
of  life  when  men,  at  least  the  majority  of  writing 
and  talking  men,  do  nothing  but  praise.  Men,  like 
peaches  and  pears,  grow  sweet  a  little  while  before 
they  begin  to  decay.  1  don't  know  what  it  is, — 
whether  a  spontaneous  change,  mental  or  bodily,  or 
whether  it  is  thorough  experience  of  the  thankless- 
ness  of  critical  honesty, — but  it  is  a  fact,  that  most 
writers,  except  sour  and  unsuccessful  ones,  get  tired 
of  finding  fault  at  about  the  time  when  they  are  be- 
ginning to  grow  old.  As  a  general  thing,  I  would 
not  give  a  great  deal  for  the  fair  words  of  a  critic,  if 
he  is  himself  an  author,  over  fifty  years  of  age.  At 
thirty  we  are  all  trying  to  cut  our  names  in  big  let- 
ters upon  the  walls  of  this  tenement  of  life ;  twenty 
years  later  we  have  carved  it,  or  shut  up  our  jack- 
knives.  Then  we  are  ready  to  help  others,  and  care 
less  to  hinder  any,  because  nobody's  elbows  are  in 
our  way.  So  I  am  glad  you  have  a  little  life  left ; 
you  will  be  saccharine  enough  in  a  few  years. 

Some  of  the  softening  effects  of  advancing 

age  have  struck  me  very  much  in  what  I  have  heard 
or  seen  here  and  elsewhere.  I  just  now  spoke  of  the 
sweetening  process  that  authors  undergo.  Do  you 
know  that  in  the  gradual  passage  from  maturity  to 
helplessness  the  harshest  characters  sometimes  have 
a  period  in  which  they  are  gentle  and  placid  as 
young  children  ?  I  have  heard  it  said,  but  I  cannot 


92    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

be  sponsor  for  its  truth,  that  the  famous  chieftain, 
Lochiel,  was  rocked  in  a  cradle  like  a  baby,  in  his 
old  age.  An  old  man,  whose  studies  had  been  of 
the  severest  scholastic  kind,  used  to  love  to  hear  little 
nursery-stories  read  over  and  over  to  him.  One  who 
saw  the  Duke  of  Wellington  in  his  last  years  de- 
scribes him  as  very  gentle  in  his  aspect  and  de- 
meanor. I  remember  a  person  of  singularly  stern 
and  lofty  bearing  who  became  remarkably  gracious 
and  easy  in  all  his  ways  in  the  later  period  of  his  life. 
And  that  leads  me  to  say  that  men  often  remind 
me  of  pears  in  their  way  of  coming  to  maturity. 
Some  are  ripe  at  twenty,  like  human  Jargonelles, 
and  must  be  made  the  most  of,  for  their  day  is  soon 
over.  Some  come  into  their  perfect  condition  late, 
like  the  autumn  kinds,  and  they  last  better  than  the 
summer  fruit.  And  some,  that,  like  the  Winter- 
Nelis,  have  been  hard  and  uninviting  until  all  the 
rest  have  had  their  season,  get  their  glow  and  per- 
fume long  after  the  frost  and  snow  have  done  their 
worst  with  the  orchards.  Beware  of  rash  criticisms  ; 
the  rough  and  stringent  fruit  you  condemn  may  be 
an  autumn  or  a  winter  pear,  and  that  which  you 
picked  up  beneath  the  same  bough  in  August  may 
have  been  only  its  worm-eaten  windfalls.  Milton 
was  a  Saint- Germain  with  a  graft  of  the  roseate 
Early- Catherine.  Rich,  juicy,  lively,  fragrant,  russet 
skinned  old  Chaucer  was  an  Easter-Beurre  ;  the  buds 
of  a  new  summer  were  swelling  when  he  ripened. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.     93 

There  is  no  power  I  envy  so  much — said  the 

divinity-student — as  that  of  seeing  analogies  and 
making  comparisons.  I  don't  understand  how  it  is 
that  some  minds  are  continually  coupling  thoughts 
or  objects  that  seem  not  in  the  least  related  to  each 
other,  until  all  at  once  they  are  put  in  a  certain 
light,  and  you  wonder  that  you  did  not  always  see 
that  they  were  as  like  as  a  pair  of  twins.  It  appears 
to  me  a  sort  of  miraculous  gift. 

[He  is  rather  a  nice  young  man,  and  I  think  has 
an  appreciation  of  the  higher  mental  qualities  re- 
markable for  one  of  his  years  and  training.  I  try  his 
head  occasionally  as  housewives  try  eggs, — give  it 
an  intellectual  shake  and  hold  it  up  to  the  light,  so 
to  speak,  to  see  if  it  has  life  in  it,  actual  or  potential, 
or  only  contains  lifeless  albumen. 

You  call  it  miraculous, — I  replied, — tossing  the  ex- 
pression with  my  facial  eminence,  a  little  smartly,  I 
fear. — Two  men  are  walking  by  the  polyphlcesbosan 
ocean,  one  of  them  having  a  small  tin  cup  with  which 
he  can  scoop  up  a  gill  of  sea- water  when  he  will,  and 
the  other  nothing  but  his  hands,  which  will  hardly 
hold  water  at  all, — and  you  call  the  tin  cup  a  mirac- 
ulous possession !  It  is  the  ocean  that  is  the  miracle, 
my  infant  apostle !  Nothing  is  clearer  than  that  all 
things  are  in  all  things,  and  that  just  according  to 
the  intensity  and  extension  of  our  mental  being  we 
shall  see  the  many  in  the  one  and  the  one  in  the 
many.  Did  Sir  Isaac  think  what  he  was  saying 


94    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

when  he  made  Ms  speech  about  the  ocean, — the  child 
and  the  pebbles,  you  know  ?  Did  he  mean  to  speak 
slightingly  of  a  pebble  ?  Of  a  spherical  solid  which 
stood  sentinel  over  its  compartment  of  space  before 
the  stone  that  became  the  pyramids  had  grown  solid, 
and  has  watched  it  until  now !  A  body  which  knows 
all  the  currents  of  force  that  traverse  the  globe  ; 
which  holds  by  invisible  threads  to  the  ring  of  Saturn 
and  the  belt  of  Orion !  A  body  from  the  contem- 
plation of  which  an  archangel  could  infer  the  entire 
inorganic  universe  as  the  simplest  of  corollaries !  A 
throne  of  the  all-pervading  Deity,  who  has  guided  its 
every  atom  since  the  rosary  of  heaven  was  strung 
with  beaded  stars ! 

So, — to  return  to  our  walk  by  the  ocean, — if  all 
that  poetry  has  dreamed,  all  that  insanity  has  raved, 
all  that  maddening  narcotics  have  driven  through  the 
brains  of  men,  or  smothered  passion  nursed  in  the 
fancies  of  women, — if  the  dreams  of  colleges  and 
convents  and  boarding-schools, — if  every  human  feel- 
ing that  sighs,  or  smiles,  or  curses,  or  shrieks,  or 
groans,  should  bring  all  their  innumerable  images, 
such  as  come  with  every  hurried  heart-beat, — the 
epic  which  held  them  all,  though  its  letters  filled  the 
zodiac,  would  be  but  a  cupful  from  the  infinite  ocean 
of  similitudes  and  analogies  that  rolls  through  the 
universe. 

[The  divinity-student  honored  himself  by  the  way 
in  which  he  received  this.  He  did  not  swallow  it  at 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    95 

once,  neither  did  he  reject  it;  but  he  took  it  as  a 
pickerel  takes  the  bait,  and  earned  it  off  with  him  to 
his  hole  (in  the  fourth  story)  to  deal  with  at  his 
leisure.] 

Here  is  another  remark  made  for  his  especial 

benefit. — There  is  a  natural  tendency  in  many  per- 
sons to  run  their  adjectives  together  in  triads,  as  I 
have  heard  them  called, — thus:  He  was  honorable, 
courteous,  and  brave  ;  she  was  graceful,  pleasing, 
and  virtuous.  Dr.  Johnson  is  famous  for  this  ;  I 
think  it  was  Bulwer  who  said  you  could  separate  a 
paper  in  the  "  Rambler  "  into  three  distinct  essays. 
Many  of  our  writers  show  the  same  tendency, — my 
friend,  the  Professor,  especially.  Some  think  it  is  in 
humble  imitation  of  Johnson, — some  that  it  is  for 
the  sake  of  the  stately  sound  only.  I  don't  think 
they  get  to  the  bottom  of  it.  It  is,  I  suspect,  an 
instinctive  and  involuntary  effort  of  the  mind  to 
present  a  thought  or  image  with  the  three  dimensions 
that  belong  to  every  solid, — an  unconscious  handling 
of  an  idea  as  if  it  had  length,  breadth,  and  thickness. 
It  is  a  great  deal  easier  to  say  this  than  to  prove  it, 
and  a  great  deal  easier  to  dispute  it  than  to  disprove 
it.  But  mind  this  :  the  more  we  observe  and  study, 
the  wider  we  find  the  range  of  the  automatic  and 
instinctive  principles  in  body,  mind,  and  morals,  and 
the  narrower  the  limits  of  the  self-determining  con- 
scious movement. 

1    have   often   seen   piano-forte   players    and 


96    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

singers  make  such  strange  motions  over  their  in- 
struments or  song-books  that  I  wanted  to  laugh  at 
them.  "  Where  did  our  friends  pick  up  all  these 
fine  ecstatic  airs  ?  "  I  would  say  to  myself.  Then  I 
would  remember  My  Lady  in  "  Marriage  a  la  Mode," 
and  amuse  myself  with  thinking  how  affectation  was 
the  same  thing  in  Hogarth's  time  and  in  our  own. 
But  one  day  I  bought  me  a  Canary-bM  and  hung 
him  up  in  a  cage  at  my  window.  By-and-by  he 
found  himself  at  home,  and  began  to  pipe  his  little 
tunes ;  and  there  he  was,  sure  enough,  swimming 
and  waving  about,  with  all  the  droopings  and  lift- 
ings and  languishing  side-turnings  of  the  head  that  I 
had  laughed  at.  And  now  I  should  like  to  ask, 
WHO  taught  him  all  this  ? — and  me,  through  him, 
that  the  foolish  head  was  not  the  one  swinging  itself 
from  side  to  side  and  bowing  and  nodding  over  the 
music,  but  that  other  which  was  passing  its  shallow 
and  self-satisfied  judgment  on  a  creature  made  of 
finer  clay  than  the  frame  which  carried  that  same 
head  upon  its  shoulders  ? 

Do  you  want  an  image  of  the  human  will,  or 

the  self-determining  principle,  as  compared  with  its 
prearranged  and  impassable  restrictions  ?  A  drop 
of  water,  imprisoned  in  a  crystal ;  you  may  see  such 
a  one  in  any  mineralogical  collection.  One  little 
fluid  particle  in  the  crystalline  prism  of  the  solid 
universe ! 

Weaken  moral  obligations  ? — No,  not  weaken, 


THE    POOR    BSl.ATI01ff. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    97 

but  define  them.  When  I  preach  that  sermon  I 
spoke  of  the  other  day,  I  shall  have  to  lay  down 
some  principles  not  fully  recognized  in  some  of  your 
text-books. 

I  should  have  to  begin  with  one  most  formidable 
preliminary.  You  saw  an  article  the  other  day  in 
one  of  the  journals,  perhaps,  in  which  some  old 
Doctor  or  other  said  quietly  that  patients  were  very 
apt  to  be  fools  and  cowards.  But  a  great  many  of 
the  clergyman's  patients  are  not  only  fools  and 
cowards,  but  also  liars. 

[Immense  sensation  at  the  table. — Sudden  retire- 
ment of  the  angular  female  in  oxy dated  bombazine. 
Movement  of  adhesion — as  they  say  in  the  Chamber 
of  Deputies — on  the  part  of  the  young  fellow  they 
call  John.  Falling  of  the  old-gentleman-opposite's 
lower  jaw — (gravitation  is  beginning  to  get  the 
better  of  him.)  Our  landlady  to  Benjamin  Franklin, 
briskly, — Go  to  school  right  off,  there's  a  good  boy  ! 
Schoolmistress  curious, — takes  a  quick  glance  at 
divinity-student.  Divinity-student  slightly  flushed  ; 
draws  his  shoulders  back  a  little,  as  if  a  big  false- 
hood— or  truth — had  hit  him  in  the  forehead.  My- 
self calm.] 

1  should  not  make  such  a  speech  as  that,  you 

know,  without  having  pretty  substantial  indorsers  to 
fall  back  upon,  in  case  my  credit  should  be  disputed. 
Will  you  run  up  stairs,  Benjamin  Franklin,  (for  B. 
F.  had  not  gone  right  off,  of  course,)  and  bring  down 


98    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

a  small  volume  from  the  left  upper  corner  of  the 
right-hand  shelves  ? 

[Look  at  the  precious  little  black,  ribbed-backed, 
clean-typed,  vellum-papered  32mo.  "  DESIDERII 
ERASMI  COLLOQUIA.  Amstelodami.  Typis  Ludo- 
vici  Elzevirii.  1650."  Various  names  written  on 
title-page.  Most  conspicuous  this  :  Gul.  Cookeson : 
E.  Coll.  Omn.  Anim,  1725.  Oxon. 

O  William  Cookeson,  of  All- Souls  College, 

Oxford, — then  writing  as  I  now  write, — now  in  the 
dust,  where  I  shall  lie, — is  this  line  all  that  remains 
to  thee  of  earthly  remembrance  ?  Thy  name  is  at 
least  once  more  spoken  by  living  men  ; — is  it  a  plea- 
sure to  thee  ?  Thou  shalt  share  with  me  my  little 
draught  of  immortality, — its  week,  its  month,  its 
year, — whatever  it  may  be, — and  then  we  will  go 
together  into  the  solemn  archives  of  Oblivion's  Un- 
catalogued  Library !] 

If  you  think  I  have  used  rather  strong  lan- 
guage, I  shall  have  to  read  something  to  you  out  of 
the  book  of  this  keen  and  witty  scholar, — the  great 
Erasmus, — who  "laid  the  egg  of 'the  Reformation 
which  Luther  hatched."  Oh,  you  never  read  his 
Naufragium,  or  "  Shipwreck,"  did  you  ?  Of  course 
not ;  for,  if  you  had,  I  don't  think  you  would  have 
given  me  credit — or  discredit — for  entire  originality 
in  that  speech  of  mine.  That  men  are  cowards  in 
the  contemplation  of  futurity  he  illustrates  by  the 
extraordinary  antics  of  many  on  board  the  sinking 


THE  AUTOCHAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    99 

vessel;  that  they  are  fools,  by  their  praying  to  the 
sea,  and  making  promises  to  bits  of  wood  from  the 
true  cross,  and  all  manner  of  similar  nonsense  ;  that 
they  are  fools,  cowards,  and  liars  all  at  once,  by  this 
story  :  T  will  put  it  into  rough  English  for  you. — "  I 
couldn't  help  laughing  to  hear  one  fellow  bawling 
out,  so  that  he  might  be  sure  to  be  heard,  a  promise 
to  Saint  Christopher  of  Paris — the  monstrous  statue 
in  the  great  church  there — that  he  would  give  him  a 
wax  taper  as  big  as  himself.  « Mind  what  you 
promise ! '  said  an  acquaintance  that  stood  near  him, 
poking  him  with  his  elbow;  'you  couldn't  pay  for 
it,  if  you  sold  all  your  things  at  auction.'  ;  Hold 
your  tongue,  you  donkey!'  said  the  fellow, — but 
softly,  so  that  Saint  Christopher  should  not  hear  him, 
— '  do  you  think  I'm  in  earnest  ?  If  I  once  get  my 
foot  on  dry  ground,  catch  me  giving  him  so  much  as 
a  tallow  candle ! '  " 

Now,  therefore,  remembering  that  those  who  have 
been  loudest  in  their  talk  about  the  great  subject  of 
which  we  were  speaking  have  not  necessarily  been 
wise,  brave,  and  true  men,  but,  on  the  contrary,  have 
very  often  been  wanting  in  one  or  two  or  all  of  the 
qualities  these  words  imply,  I  should  expect  to  find 
a  good  many  doctrines  current  in  the  schools  which 
I  should  be  obliged  to  call  foolish,  cowardly,  and 
false. 

So  you  would  abuse  other  people's  beliefs, 

Sir,  and  yet  not  tell  us  your  own  creed  ! — said  the 


100   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

divinity-student,  coloring  up  with  a  spirit  for  which 
I  liked  him  all  the  better. 

1  have  a  creed, — I  replied ; — none  better,  and 

none  shorter.  It  is  told  in  two  words, — the  two  first 
of  the  Paternoster.  And  when  I  say  these  words  I 
mean  them.  And  when  I  compared  the  human  will 
to  a  drop  in  a  crystal,  and  said  I  meant  to  define 
moral  obligations,  and  not  weaken  them,  this  was 
what  I  intended  to  express:  that  the  fluent,  self- 
determining  power  of  human  beings  is  a  very  strictly 
limited  agency  in  the  universe.  The  chief  planes 
of  its  enclosing  solid  are,  of  course,  organization, 
education,  condition.  Organization  may  reduce  the 
power  of  the  will  to  nothing,  as  in  some  idiots ;  and 
from  this  zero  the  scale  mounts  upwards  by  slight 
gradations.  Education  is  only  second  to  nature. 
Imagine  all  the  infants  born  this  year  in  Boston  and 
Timbuctoo  to  change  places !  Condition  does  less, 
but  "  Give  me  neither  poverty  nor  riches"  was  the 
prayer  of  Agur,  and  with  good  reason.  If  there  is 
any  improvement  in  modern  theology,  it  is  in  getting 
out  of  the  region  of  pure  abstractions  and  taking 
these  e very-day  working  forces  into  account.  The 
great  theological  question  now  heaving  and  throb- 
bing in  the  minds  of  Christian  men  is  this  : 

No,  I  wont  talk  about  these  things  now.  My  re- 
marks might  be  repeated,  and  it  would  give  my 
friends  pain  .to  see  with  what  personal  incivilities  I 
should  be  visited.  Besides,  what  business  has  a 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE   BREAKFAST-TABLE.        1QJ 

mere  boarder  to  be  talking  about  such  things  at  a 
breakfast-table  ?  Let  him  make  puns.  To  be  sure, 
he  was  brought  up  among  the  Christian  fathers,  and 
learned  his  alphabet  out  of  a  quarto  "  Concilium 
Tridentinum."  He  has  also  heard  many  thousand 
theological  lectures  by  men  of  various  denomina- 
tions ;  and  it  is  not  at  all  to  the  credit  of  these  teach- 
ers, if  he  is  not  fit  by  this  time  to  express  an  opinion 
on  theological  matters. 

I  know  well  enough  that  there  are  some  of  you 
who  had  a  great  deal  rather  see  me  stand  on  my 
head  than  use  it  for  any  purpose  of  thought.  Does 
not  my  friend,  the  Professor,  receive  at  least  two  let- 
ters a  week,  requesting  him  to 

,— on  the  strength  of  some  youthful  antic  of 

his,  which,  no  doubt,  authorizes  the  intelligent  con- 
stituency of  autograph-hunters  to  address  him  as  a 
harlequin  ? 

Well,  I  can't  be  savage  with  you  for  wanting 

to  laugh,  and  I  like  to  make  you  laugh,  well  enough, 
when  I  can.  But  then  observe  this  :  if  the  sense  of 
the  ridiculous  is  one  side  of  an  impressible  nature, 
it  is  very  well ;  but  if  that  is  all  there  is  in  a  man, 
he  had  better  have  been  an  ape  at  once,  and  so  have 
stood  at  the  head  of  his  profession.  Laughter  and 
tears  are  meant  to  turn  the  wheels  of  the  same  ma- 
chinery of  sensibility ;  one  is  wind-power,  and  the 
other  water-power ;  that  is  all.  I  have  often  heard 
the  Professor  talk  about  hysterics  as  being  Nature's 


102   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

cleverest  illustration  of  the  reciprocal  convertibility 
of  the  two  states  of  which  these  acts  are  the  mani- 
festations ;  But  you  may  see  it  every  day  in  chil- 
dren ;  and  if  you  want  to  choke  with  stifled  tears  at 
sight  of  the  transition,  as  it  shows  itself  in  older 
years,  go  and  see  Mr.  Blake  play  Jesse  Rural. 

It  is  a  very  dangerous  thing  for  a  literary  man  to 
indulge  his  love  for  the  ridiculous.  People  laugh 
with  him  just  so  long  as  he  amuses  them  ;  but  if  be 
attempts  to  be  serious,  they  must  still  have  their 
laugh,  and  so  they  laugh  at  him.  There  is  in  addi- 
tion, however,  a  deeper  reason  for  this  than  would  at 
first  appear.  Do  you  know  that  you  feel  a  little 
superior  to  every  man  who  makes  you  laugh,  whether 
by  making  faces  or  verses?  Are  you  aware  that 
you  have  a  pleasant  sense  of  patronizing  him,  when 
you  condescend  so  far  as  to  let  him  turn  somersets, 
literal  or  literary,  for  your  royal  delight  ?  Now  if  a 
man  can  only  be  allowed  to  stand  on  a  dais,  or  raised 
platform,  and  look  down  on  his  neighbor  who  is  ex- 
erting his  talent  for  him,  oh,  it  is  all  right ! — first-rate 
performance ! — and  all  the  rest  of  the  fine  phrases. 
But  if  all  at  once  the  performer  asks  the  gentleman 
to  come  upon  the  floor,  and,  stepping  upon  the  plat- 
form, begins  to  talk  down  at  him, — ah,  that  wasn't 
in  the  programme ! 

I  have  never  forgotten  what  happened  when  Syd- 
ney Smith — who,  as  everybody  knows,  was  an  ex- 
ceedingly sensible  man,  and  a  gentleman,  every  inch 


THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.        1Q3 

of  him — ventured  to  preach  a  sermon  on  the  Duties 
of  Royalty.  The  "  Quarterly,"  "  so  savage  and  tar- 
tarly,"  came  down  upon  him  in  the  most  contempt- 
uous style,  as  "  a  joker  of  jokes,"  a  "  diner-out  of  the 
first  water,"  in  one  of  his  own  phrases ;  sneering  at 
him,  insulting  him,  as  nothing  but  a  toady  of  a  court, 
sneaking  behind  the  anonymous,  would  ever  have 
been  mean  enough  to  do  to  a  man  of  his  position 
and  genius,  or  to  any  decent  person  even. — If  I  were 
giving  advice  to  a  young  fellow  of  talent,  with  two 
or  three  facets  to  his  mind,  I  would  tell  him  by  all 
means  to  keep  his  wit  in  the  background  until  after 
he  had  made  a  reputation  by  his  more  solid  qualities. 
And  so  to  an  actor:  Hamlet  first,  and  Bob  Logic 
afterwards,  if  you  like  ;  but  don't  think,  as  they  say 
poor  Liston  used  to,  that  people  will  be  ready  to 
allow  that  you  can  do  anything  great  with  Macbeth' s 
dagger  after  flourishing  about  with  Paul  Pry's  um- 
brella. Do  you  know,  too,  that  the  majority  of  men 
look  upon  all  who  challenge  their  attention, — for  a 
while,  at  least, — as  beggars,  and  nuisances  ?  They 
always  try  to  get  off  as  cheaply  as  they  can  ;  and 
the  cheapest  of  all  things  they  can  give  a  literary 
man — pardon  the  forlorn  pleasantry  ! — is  the  funny- 
bone.  That  is  all  very  well  so  far  as  it  goes,  but 
satisfies  no  man,  and  makes  a  good  many  angry,  as 
I  told  you  on  a  former  occasion. 

Oh,  indeed,  no  ! — I  am  not  ashamed  to  make 

you  laugh ,  occasionally.     I  think  I  could  read  you 


104   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

something  I  have  in  my  desk  which  would  probably 
make  you  smile.  Perhaps  I  will  read  it  one  of  these 
days,  if  you  are  patient  with  me  when  I  am  senti- 
mental and  reflective;  not  just  now.  The  ludicrous 
has  its  place  in  the  universe  ;  it  is  not  a  human  in- 
vention, but  one  of  the  Divine  ideas,  illustrated  in 
the  practical  jokes  of  kittens  and  monkeys  long  be- 
fore Aristophanes  or  Shakspeare.  How  curious  it 
is  that  we  always  consider  solemnity  and  the  ab- 
sence of  all  gay  surprises  and  encounter  of  wits  as 
essential  to  the  idea  of  the  future  life  of  those  whom 
we  thus  deprive  of  half  their  faculties  and  then  call 
blessed  !  There  are  not  a  few  who,  even  in  this  life, 
seem  to  be  preparing  themselves  for  that  smileless 
eternity  to  which  they  look  forward,  by  banishing  all 
gayety  from  their  hearts  and  all  joyousness  from 
their  countenances.  I  meet  one  such  in  the  street 
not  unfrequently,  a  person  of  intelligence  and  edu- 
cation, but  who  gives  me  (and  all  that  he  passes) 
such  a  rayless  and  chilling  look  of  recognition, — 
something  as  if  he  were  one  of  Heaven's  assessors, 
come  down  to  "doom"  every  acquaintance  he  met, 
——that  I  have  sometimes  begun  to  sneeze  on  the  spot, 
and  gone  home  with  a  violent  cold,  dating  from  that 
instant.  I  don't  doubt  he  would  cut  his  kitten's  tail 
off,  if  he  caught  her  playing  with  it.  Please  tell 
me,  who  taught  her  to  play  with  it  ? 

No,  no ! — give  me  a  chance  to  talk  to  you,  my  fel- 
low-boarders, and  you  need  not  be  afraid  that  I  shall 


THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.        1Q5 

have  any  scruples  about  entertaining  you,  if  I  can 
do  it,  as  well  as  giving  you  some  of  my  serious 
thoughts,  and  perhaps  my  sadder  fancies.  I  know 
nothing  in  English  or  any  other  literature  more  ad- 
mirable than  that  sentiment  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne 
"  EVERY  MAN  TRULY  LIVES,  so  LONG  AS  HE  ACTS  HIS 

NATURE,  OR  SOME  WAY  MAKES  GOOD  THE  FACULTIES  OF 
HIMSELF." 

I  find  the  great  thing  in  this  world  is  not  so  much 
where  we  stand,  as  in  what  direction  we  are  moving: 
To  reach  the  port  of  heaven,  we  must  sail  sometimes 
with  the  wind  and  sometimes  against  it, — but  we 
must  sail,  and  not  drift,  nor  lie  at  anchor.  There  is 
one  very  sad  thing  in  old  friendships,  to  every  mind 
that  is  really  moving  onward.  It  is  this  :  that  one 
cannot  help  using  his  early  friends  as  the  seaman 
uses  the  log,  to  mark  his*  progress.  Every  now  and 
then  we  throw  an  old  schoolmate  over  the  stern  with 
a  string  of  thought  tied  to  him,  and  look — I  ana 
afraid  with  a  kind  of  luxurious  and  sanctimonious 
compassion — to  see  the  rate  at  which  the  string  reels 
off,  while  he  lies  there  bobbing  up  and  down,  poor 
fellow !  and  we  are  dashing  along  with  the  white 
foam  and  bright  sparkle  at  our  bows  ; — the  ruffled 
bosom  of  prosperity  and  progress,  with  a  sprig  of 
diamonds  stuck  in  it!  But  this  is  only  the  senti- 
mental side  of  the  matter;  for  grow  we  must,  if  we 
outgrow  all  that  we  love. 

Don't  misunderstand  that  metaphor  of  heaving  the 

5* 


106        THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE   BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

log,  I  beg  you.  It  is  merely  a  smart  way  of  saying 
that  we  cannot  avoid  measuring  our  rate  of  move- 
ment by  those  with  whom  we  have  long  been  in  the 
habit  of  comparing  ourselves ;  and  when  they  once 
become  stationary,  we  can  get  our  reckoning  from 
them  with  painful  accuracy.  "We  see  just  what  we 
were  when  they  were  our  peers,  and  can  strike  the 
balance  between  that  and  whatever  we  may  feel 
ourselves  to  be  now.  No  doubt  we  may  sometimes 
be  mistaken.  If  we  change  our  last  simile  to  that 
very  old  and  familiar  one  of  a  fleet  leaving  the  har- 
bor and  sailing  in  company  for  some  distant  region, 
we  can  get  what  we  want  out  of  it.  There  is  one 
of  our  companions ; — her  streamers  were  torn  into 
rags  before  she  had  got  into  the  open  sea,  then  by 
and  by  her  sails  blew  out  of  the  ropes  one  after 
another,  the  waves  swept-  her  deck,  and  as  night 
came  on  we  left  her  a  seeming  wreck,  as  we  flew 
under  our  pyramid  of  canvas.  But  lo  !  at  dawn  she 
is  still  in  sight, — it  may  be  in  advance  of  us.  Some 
deep  ocean-current  has  been  moving  her  on,  strong, 
but  silent, — yes,  stronger  than  these  noisy  winds  that 
puff  our  sails  until  they  are  swollen  as  the  cheeks  of 
jubilant  cherubim.  And  when  at  last  the  black 
steam-tug  with  the  skeleton  arms,  which  comes  out 
of  the  mist  sooner  or  later  and  takes  us  all  in  tow, 
grapples  her  and  goes  off  panting  and  groaning  with 
her,  it  is  to  that  harbor  where  all  wrecks  are  refitted, 
and  where,  alas !  we,  towering  in  our  pride,  may 
never  come. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   1Q7 

So  you  will  not  think  I  mean  to  speak  lightly  of 
old  friendships,  because  we  cannot  help  instituting 
comparisons  between  our  present  and  former  selves 
by  the  aid  of  those  who  were  what  we  were,  but 
are  not  what  we  are.  Nothing  strikes  one  more,  in 
the  race  of  life,  than  to  see  how  many  give  out  in 
the  first  half  of  the  course.  "  Commencement  day  " 
always  reminds  me  of  the  start  for  the  "  Derby," 
when  the  beautiful  high-bred  three-year  olds  of  the 
season  are  brought  up  for  trial.  That  day  is  the 
start,  and  life  is  the  race.  Here  we  are  at  Cam- 
bridge, and  a  class  is  just  "  graduating."  Poor 
Harry !  he  was  to  have  been  there  too,  but  he  has 
paid  forfeit ;  step  out  here  into  the  grass  back  of  the 
church ;  ah !  there  it  is : — 

"  HUNG   LAPIDEM   POSUERUNT 
SOCII   MCERENTES." 

But  this  is  the  start,  and  here  they  are, — coats  bright 
as  silk,  and  manes  as  smooth  as  eau  lustrale  can 
make  them.  Some  of  the  best  of  the  colts  are 
pranced  round,  a  few  minutes  each,  to  show  their 
paces.  What  is  that  old  gentleman  crying  about  ? 
and  the  old  lady  by  him,  and  the  three  girls,  what 
are  they  all  covering  their  eyes  for  ?  Oh,  that  is 
their  colt  which  has  just  been  trotted  up  on  the 
stage.  Do  they  really  think  those  little  thin  legs 
can  do  anything  in  such  a  slashing  sweepstakes  as  is 
coming  off  in  these  next  forty  years  ?  Oh,  this  ter- 
rible gift  of  second-sight  that  comes  to  some  of  us 


108   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

when  we  begin  to  look  through  the  silvered  rings  of 
the  arcus  senilis  ! 

Ten  years  gone.  First  turn  in  the  race.  A  few 
broken  down  ;  two  or  three  bolted.  Several  show 
in  advance  of  the  ruck.  Cassock,  a  black  colt,  seems 
to  be  ahead  of  the  rest ;  those  black  colts  commonly 
get  the  start,  I  have  noticed,  of  the  others,  in  the  first 
quarter.  Meteor  has  pulled  up. 

Twenty  years.  Second  corner  turned.  Cassock 
has  dropped  from  the  front,  and  Judex,  an  iron-gray, 
has  the  lead.  But  look  !  how  they  have  thinned  out ! 
Down  flat, — five, — six, — how  many?  They  lie  still 
enough !  they  will  not  get  up  again  in  this  race,  be 
very  sure !  And  the  rest  of  them,  what  a  "  tailing 
off"!  Anybody  can  see  who  is  going  to  win, — 
perhaps. 

T/iirty  years.  Third  corner  turned.  Dives,  bright 
sorrel,  ridden  by  the  fellow  in  a  yellow  jacket,  begins 
to  make  play  fast;  is  getting  to  be  the  favourite 
with  many.  But  who  is  that  other  one  that  has  been 
lengthening  his  stride  from  the  first,  and  now  shows 
close  up  to  the  front  ?  Don't  you  remember  the 
quiet  brown  colt  Asteroid,  with  the  star  in  his  fore- 
head ?  That  is  he  ;  he  is  one  of  the  sort  that  lasts ; 
look  out  for  him  !  The  black  "  colt,"  as  we  used  to 
call  him,  is  in  the  background,  taking  it  easily  in  a 
gentle  trot.  There  is  one  they  used  to  call  the  Filly, 
on  account  of  a  certain  feminine  air  he  had ;  well  up, 
you  see ;  the  Filly  is  not  to  be  despised,  my  boy ! 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   109 

Forty  years.  More  dropping  off, — but  places  much 
as  before. 

Fifty  years.  Race  over.  All  that  are  on  the 
course  are  coming  in  at  a  walk;'  no  more  running. 
Who  is  ahead  ?  Ahead  ?  What !  and  the  winning- 
post  a  slab  of  white  or  gray  stone  standing  out  from 
that  turf  where  there  is  no  more  jockeying  or  strain- 
ing for  victory  !  Well,  the  world  marks  their  places 
in  its  betting-book;  but  be  sure  that  these  matter 
very  little;  if  they  have  run  as  well  as  they  knew 
how! 

Did  I  not  say  to  you  a  little  while  ago  that 

the  universe  swam  in  an  ocean  of  similitudes  and 
analogies?  I  will  not  quote  Cowley,  or  Burns,  or 
Wordsworth,  just  now,  to  show  you  what  thoughts 
were  suggested  to  them  by  the  simplest  natural 
objects,  such  as  a  flower  or  a  leaf;  but  I  will  read 
you  a  few  lines,  if  you  do  not  object,  suggested  by 
looking  at  a  section  of  one  of  those  chambered  shells 
to  which  is  given  the  name  of  Pearly  Nautilus.  We 
need  not  trouble  ourselves  about  the  distinction  be- 
tween this  and  the  Paper  Nautilus,  the  Argonauta  of 
the  ancients.  The  name  applied  to  both  shows  that 
each  has  long  been  compared  to  a  ship,  as  you  may 
see  more  fully  in  Webster's  Dictionary,  or  the  "  En- 
cyclopedia," to  which  he  refers.  If  you  will  look 
into  Uoget's  Bridgewater  Treatise,  you  will  find  a 
figure  of  one  of  these  shells,  and  a  section  of  it.  The 
last  will  show  you  the  series  of  enlarging  compart- 


HO   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BKEAKFAST-TABLE. 

ments  successively  dwelt  in  by  the  animal  that 
inhabits  the  shell,  which  is  built  in  a  widening 
spiral.  Can  you  find  no  lesson  in  this? 

THE  CHAMBERED  NAUTILUS. 

This  is  the  ship  of  pearl,  which,  poets  feign, 

Sails  the  unshadowed  main, — 

The  venturous  bark  that  flings 
On  the  sweet  summer  wind  its  purpled  wings 
In  gulfs  enchanted,  where  the  siren  sings, 

And  coral  reefs  lie  bare, 
Where  the  cold  sea-maids  rise  to  sun  their  streaming  hair. 

Its  webs  of  living  gauze  no  more  unfurl ; 

Wrecked  is  the  ship  of  pearl ! 

And  every  chambered  cell, 
Where  its  dim  dreaming  life  was  wont  to  dwell, 
As  the  frail  tenant  shaped  his  growing  shell, 

Before  thee  lies  revealed, — 
Its  irised  ceiling  rent,  its  sunless  crypt  unsealed ! 

Year  after  year  beheld  the  silent  toil 

That  spread  his  lustrous  coil ; 

Still,  as  the  spiral  grew, 
He  left  the  past  year's  dwelling  for  the  new, 
Stole  with  soft  step  its  shining  archway  through, 

Built  up  its  idle  door, 
Stretched  in  his  last-found  home,  and  knew  the  old  no  more. 

Thanks  for  the  heavenly  message  brought  by  thee, 
Child  of  the  wandering  sea, 
Cast  from  her  lap  forlorn  ! 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

From  thy  dead  lips  a  clearer  note  Is  born 
Than  ever  Triton  blew  from  wreathed  horn  1 

While  on  mine  ear  it  rings, 
Through  the  deep  caves  of  thought  I  hear  a  voice  that  sings 

Build  thee  more  stately  mansions,  O  my  soul, 

As  the  swift  seasons  roll ! 

Leave  thy  low-vaulted  past! 
Let  each  new  temple,  nobler  than  the  last, 
Shut  thee  from  heaven  with  a  dome  more  vast, 

Till  thou  at  length  art  free, 
Leaving  thine  outgrown  shell  by  life's  unresting  sea  1 


V. 


A  LYRIC  conception — my  friend,  the  Poet,  said — 
hits  me  like  a  bullet  in  the  forehead.  I  have  often 
had  the  blood  drop  from  my  cheeks  when  it  struck, 
and  felt  that  I  turned  as  white  as  death.  Then 
comes  a  creeping  as  of  centipedes  running  down  the 
spine, — then  a  gasp  and  a  great  jump  of  the  heart,— 
then  a  sudden  flush  and  a  beating  in  the  vessels 
of  the  head, — then  a  long  sigh, — -and  the  poem  is 
written. 

It  is  an  impromptu,  I  suppose,  then,  if  you  write 
it  so  suddenly, — I  replied. 

No, — said  he, — far  from  it.     I  said  written,  but  I 


112   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

did  not  say  copied.  Every  such  poem  has  a  soul 
and  a  body,  and  it  is  the  body  of  it,  or  the  copy,  that 
men  read  and  publishers  pay  for.  The  spul  of  it  is 
born  in  an  instant  in  the  poet's  soul.  It  comes  to 
him  a  thought,  tangled  in  the  meshes  of  a  few  sweet 
words, — words  that  have  loved  each  other  from  the 
cradle  of  the  language,  but  have  never  been  wedded 
until  now.  Whether  it  will  ever  fully  embody  itself 
in  a  bridal  train  of  a  dozen  stanzas  or  not  is  uncer- 
tain ;  but  it  exists  potentially  from  the  instant  that 
the  poet  turns  pale  with  it.  It  is  enough  to  stun 
and  scare  anybody,  to  have  a  hot  thought  come 
crashing  into  his  brain,  and  ploughing  up  those  par- 
allel ruts  where  the  wagon  trains  of  common  ideas 
were  jogging  along  in  their  regular  sequences  of  as- 
sociation. No  wonder  the  ancients  made  the  poet- 
ical impulse  wholly  external.  Wjvtv  fetfe  6m  •  Goddess, 
— Muse, — divine  afflatus, — something  outside  always. 
I  never  wrote  any  verses  worth  reading.  I  can't.  I 
am  too  stupid.  If  I  ever  copied  any  that  were  worth 
reading,  I  was  only  a  medium. 

[I  was  talking  all  this  time  to  our  boarders,  you 
understand, — telling  them  what  this  poet  told  me. 
The  company  listened  rather  attentively,  I  thought, 
considering  the  literary  character  of  the  remarks.] 

The  old  gentleman  opposite  all  at  once  asked  me 
if  I  ever  read  anything  better  than  Pope's  "  Essay 
on  Man  "  ?  Had  I  ever  perused  McFingal  ?  He  was 
fond  of  poetry  when  he  was  a  boy, — his  mother 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    Hg 

taught  him  to  say  many  little  pieces, — he  remem- 
bered one  beautiful  hymn ; — and  the  old  gentleman 
began,  in  a  clear,  loud  voice,  for  his  years, — 

"  The  spacious  firmament  on  high, 
With  all  the  blue  ethereal  sky, 
And  spangled  heavens," 

He  stopped,  as  if  startled  by  our  silence,  and  a  faint 
flush  ran  up  beneath  the  thin  white  hairs  that  fell 
upon  his  cheek.  As  I  looked  round,  I  was  reminded 
of  a  show  I  once  saw  at  the  Museum, — the  Sleeping 
Beauty,  I  think  they  called  it.  The  old  man's  sud- 
den breaking  out  in  this  way  turned  every  face 
towards  him,  and  each  kept  his  posture  as  if  changed 
to  stone.  Our  Celtic  Bridget,  or  Biddy,  is  not  a 
foolish  fat  scullion  to  burst  out  crying  for  a  senti- 
ment. She  is  of  the  serviceable,  red-handed,  broad- 
and-high-shouldered  type;  one  of  those  imported 
female  servants  who  are  known  in  public  by  their 
amorphous  style  of  person,  their  stoop  forwards,  and 
a  headlong  and  as  it  were  precipitous  walk, — the 
waist  plunging  downwards  into  the  rocking  pelvis  at 
every  heavy  footfall.  Bridget,  constituted  for  action, 
not  for  emotion,  was  about  to  deposit  a  plate  heaped 
with  something  upon  the  table,  when  I  saw  the 
coarse  arm  stretched  by  my  shoulder  arrested, — mo- 
tionless as  the  arm  of  a  terra-cotta  caryatid;  she 
couldn't  set  the  plate  down  while  the  old  gentleman 
was  speaking! 

He  was  quite  silent  after  this,  still  wearing  the 


114   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Blight  flush  on  his  cheek.  Don't  ever  think  the 
poetry  is  dead  in  an  old  man  because  his  forehead 
is  wrinkled,  or,  tHat  his  manhood  has  left  him  when 
his  hand  trembles !  If  they  ever  were  there,  they 
are  there  still ! 

By  and  by  we  got  talking  again. Does  a  poet 

love  the  verses  written  through  him,  do  you  think, 
Sir  ? — said  the  divinity-student. 

So  long  as  they  are  warm  from  his  mind,  carry 
any  of  his  animal  heat  about  them,  I  know  he  loves 
them, — I  answered.  When  they  have  had  time  to 
cool,  he  is  more  indifferent. 

A  good  deal  as  it  is  with  buckwheat  cakes, — said 
the  young  fellow  whom  they  call  John. 

The  last  words,  only,  reached  the  ear  of  the  eco- 
nomically organized  female  in  black  bombazine. 

Buckwheat  is  skerce  and  high, — she  remarked. 
[Must  be  a  poor  relation  sponging  on  our  landlady, 
— pays  nothing, — so  she  must  stand  by  the  guns 
and  be  ready  to  repel  boarders.] 

I  liked  the  turn  the  conversation  had  taken,  for  I 
had  some  things  I  wanted  to  say,  and  so,  after  wait- 
ing a  minute,  I  began  again. — I  don't  think  the 
poems  I  read  you  sometimes  can  be  fairly  appre- 
ciated, given  to  you  as  they  are  in  the  green  state. 

You  don't  know  what  I  mean  by  the  green 

state  ?  Well,  then,  I  will  tell  you.  Certain  things 
are  good  far  nothing  until  they  have  been  kept  a 
long  while;  and  some  are  good  for  nothing  until 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   115 

they  have  been  long  kept '  and  used.  Of  the  first, 
wine  is  the  illustrious  and  immortal  example.  Of 
those  which  must  be  kept  and  used  I  will  name 
three, — meerschaum  pipes,  violins,  and  poems.  The 
meerschaum  is  but  a  poor  affair  until  it  has  burned 
a  thousand  offerings  to  the  cloud-compelling  deities. 
It  comes  to  us  without  complexion  or  flavor, — born 
of  the  sea-foam,  like  Aphrodite,  but  colorless  as 
pallida  Mors  herself.  The  fire  is  lighted  in  its  cen- 
tral shrine,  and  gradually  the  juices  which  the  broad 
leaves  of  the  Great  Vegetable  had  sucked  up  from 
an  acre  and  curdled  into  a  drachm  are  diffused 
through  its  thirsting  pores.  First  a  discoloration, 
then  a  stain,  and  at  last  a  rich,  glowing,  umber  tint 
spreading  over  the  whole  surface.  Nature  true  to 
her  old  brown  autumnal  hue,  you  see, — as  true  in 
the  fire  of  the  meerschaum  as  in  the  sunshine  of 
October!  And  then  the  cumulative  wealth  of  its 
fragrant  reminiscences !  he  who  inhales  its  vapors 
takes  a  thousand  whiffs  in  a  single  breath  ;  and  one 
cannot  touch  it  without  awakening  the  old  joys  that 
hang  around  it  as  the  smell  of  flowers  clings  to  the 
dresses  of  the  daughters  of  the  house  of  Farina  ! 

[Don't  think  I  use  a  meerschaum  myself,  for  /  do 
not,  though  I  have  owned  a  calumet  since  my  child- 
hood, which  from  a  naked  Pict  (of  the  Mohawk 
species)  my  grandsire  won,  together  with  a  tom- 
ahawk and  beaded  knife-sheath ;  paying  for  the  lot 
with  a  bullet-mark  on  his  right  cheek.  On  the  rna- 


116   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

ternal  side  I  inherit  the  loveliest  silver-mounted  to- 
bacco-stopper you  ever  saw.  It  is  a  little  box-wood 
Triton,  carved  with  charming  liveliness  and  truth  ; 
I  have  often  compared  it  to  a  figure  in  Raphael's 
"  Triumph  of  Galatea."  It  came  to  me  in  an  an- 
cient shagreen  case, — how  old  it  is  I  do  not  know, — 
but  it  must  have  been  made  since  Sir  Walter  Ra- 
leigh's time.  If  you  are  curious,  you  shall  see  it 
any  day.  Neither  will  I  pretend  that  I  am  so  un- 
used to  the  more  perishable  smoking  contrivance, 
that  a  few  whiffs  would  make  me  feel  as  if  I  lay 
in  a  ground-swell  on  the  Bay  of  Biscay.  I  am 
not  unacquainted  with  that  fusiform,  spiral-wound 
bundle  of  chopped  stems  and  miscellaneous  incom- 
bustibles,  the  cigar ,  so  called,  of  the  shops, — which 
to  "  draw  "  asks  the  suction-power  of  a  nursling  in- 
fant Hercules,  and  to  relish,  the  leathery  palate  of 
an  old  Silenus.  I  do  not  advise  you,  young  man, 
even  if  my  illustration  strike  your  fancy,  to  conse- 
crate the  flower  of  your  life  to  painting  the  bowl  of 
a  pipe,  for,  let  me  assure  you,  the  stain  of  a  reverie- 
breeding  narcotic  may  strike  deeper  than  you  think 
for.  I  have  seen  the  green  leaf  of  early  promise  grow 
brown  before  its  time  under  such  Nicotian  regimen, 
and  thought  the  umbered  meerschaum  was  dearly 
bought  at  the  cost  of  a  brain  enfeebled  and  a  will 
enslaved.] 

Violins,  too, — the  sweet  old  Amati! — the  divine 
Stradivarius !    Played   on  by  ancient  maestros  until 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   H7 

the  bow-hand  lost  its  power  and  the  flying  fingers 
stiffened.  Bequeathed  to  the  passionate  young  en- 
thusiast, who  made  it  whisper  his  hidden  love,  and 
cry  his  inarticulate  longings,  and  scream  his  untold 
agonies,  and  wail  his  monotonous  despair.  Passed 
from  his  dying  hand  to  the  cold  virtuoso,  who  let  it 
slumber  in  its  case  for  a  generation,  till,  when  his 
hoard  was  broken  up,  it  came  forth  once  more  and 
rode  the  stormy  symphonies  of  royal  orchestras, 
beneath  the  rushing  bow  of  their  lord  and  leader. 
Into  lonely  prisons  with  improvident  artists ;  into 
convents  from  which  arose,  day  and  night,  the  holy 
hymns  with  which  its  tones  were  blended  ;  and  back 
again  to  orgies  in  which  it  learned  to  howl  and 
laugh  as  if  a  legion  of  devils  were  shut  up  in  it ;  then 
again  to  the  gentle  dilettante  who  calmed  it  down 
with  easy  melodies  until  it  answered  him  softly  as 
in  the  days  of  the  old  maestros.  And  so  given  into 
our  hands,  its  pores  all  full  of  music ;  stained,  like 
the  meerschaum,  through  and  through,  with  the  con- 
centrated hue  and  sweetness  of  all  the  harmonies 
which  have  kindled  and  faded  on  its  strings. 

Now  I  tell  you  a  poem  must  be  kept  and  used, 
like  a  meerschaum,  or  a  violin.  A  poem  is  just  as 
porous  as  the  meerschaum  ; — the  more  porous  it  is, 
the  better.  I  mean  to  say  that  a  genuine  poem  is 
capable  of  absorbing  an  indefinite  amount  of  the 
essence  of  our  own  humanity, — its  tenderness,  its 
heroism,  its  regrets,  its  aspirations,  so  as  to  be  gradu- 


118   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

ally  stained  through  with  a  divine  secondary  color 
derived  from  ourselves.  So  you  see  it  must  take 
time  to  bring  the  sentiment  of  a  poem  into  harmony 
with  our  nature,  by  staining  ourselves  through  every 
thought  and  image  our  being  can  penetrate. 

Then  again  as  to  the  mere  music  of  a  new  poem  ; 
why,  who  can  expect  anything  more  from  that  than 
from  the  music  of  a  violin  fresh  from  the  maker's 
hands  ?  Now  you  know  very  well  that  there  are  no 
less  than  fifty-eight  different  pieces  in  a  violin.  These 
pieces  are  strangers  to  each  other,  and  it  takes  a 
century,  more  or  less,  to  make  them  thoroughly  ac- 
quainted. At  last  they  learn  to  vibrate  in  harmony, 
and  the  instrument  becomes  an  organic  whole,  as 
if  it  were  a  great  seed-capsule  which  had  grown  from 
a  garden-bed  in  Cremona,  or  elsewhere.  Besides, 
the  wood  is  juicy  and  full  of  sap  for  fifty  years  or  so, 
but  at  the  end  of  fifty  or  a  hundred  more  gets  toler- 
ably dry  and  comparatively  resonant. 

Don't  you  see  that  all  this  is  just  as  true  of  a 
poem  ?  Counting  each  word  as  a  piece,  there  are 
more  pieces  in  an  average  copy  of  verses  than  in  a 
violin.  The  poet  has  forced  all  these  words  together, 
and  fastened  them,  and  they  don't  understand  it  at 
first.  But  let  the  poem  be  repeated  aloud  and  mur- 
mured over  in  the  mind's  muffled  whisper  often 
enough,  and  at  length  the  parts  become  knit  together 
in  such  absolute  solidarity  that  you  could  not  change 
a  syllable  without  the  whole  world's  crying  out 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   ng 

against  you  for  meddling  with  the  harmonious  fabric. 
Observe,  too,  how  the  drying  process  takes  place  in 
the  stuff  of  a  poem  just  as  in  that  of  a  violin.  Here 
is  a  Tyrolese  fiddle  that  is  just  coming  to  its  hun- 
dredth birthday, — (Pedro  Klauss,  Tyroli,  fecit,  1760,) 
— the  sap  is  pretty  well  out  of  it.  And  here  is  the 
song  of  an  old  poet  whom  Neaera  cheated  : — 

"  Nox  erat,  et  ccelo  fulgebat  Luna  sereno 

Inter  minora  sidera, 
Cum  tu  magnorum  numen  laesura  deorum 

In  verba  jurabas  mea." 

Don't  you  perceive  the  sonorousness  of  these  old 
dead  Latin  phrases?  Now  I  tell  you  that  every 
word  fresh  from  the  dictionary  brings  with  it  a  cer- 
tain succulence;  and  though  I  cannot  expect  the 
sheets  of  the  "  Pactolian,"  in  which,  as  I  told  you,  I 
sometimes  print  my  verses,  to  get  so  dry  as  the  crisp 
papyrus  that  held  those  words  of  Horatius  Flaccus, 
yet  you  may  be  sure,  that,  while  the  sheets  are  damp, 
and  while  the  lines  hold  their  sap,  you  can't  fairly 
judge  of  my  performances,  and  that,  if  made  of  the 
true  stuff,  they  will  ring  better  after  a  while. 

[There  was  silence  for  a  brief  space,  after  my 
somewhat  elaborate  exposition  of  these  self-evident 
analogies.  Presently  a  person  turned  towards  me — 
I  do  not  choose  to  designate  the  individual — and 
said  that  he  rather  expected  my  pieces  had  given 
pretty  good  "  sahtisfahction." — I  had,  up  to  this  mo- 
ment, considered  this  complimentary  phrase  as  sacred 


120   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

to  the  use  of  secretaries  of  lyceums,  and,  as  it  has 
been  usually  accompanied  by  a  small  pecuniary  tes- 
timonial, have  acquired  a  certain  relish  for  this 
moderately  tepid  and  unstimulating  expression  of 
enthusiasm.  But  as  a  reward  for  gratuitous  services, 
I  confess  I  thought  it  a  little  below  that  blood-heat 
standard  which  a  man's  breath  ought  to  have, 
whether  silent,  or  vocal  and  articulate.  I  waited  for 
a  favorable  opportunity,  however,  before  making  the 
remarks  which  follow.] 

There  are  single  expressions,  as   I  have  told 

you  already,  that  fix  a  man's  position  for  you  before 
you  have  done  shaking  hands  with  him.  Allow  me 
to  expand  a  little.  There  are  several  things,  very 
slight  in  themselves,  yet  implying  other  things  not 
so  unimportant.  Thus,  your  French  servant  has 
devalisS  your  premises  and  got  caught.  Excusez, 
says  the  sergent-de-ville^  as  he  politely  relieves  him 
of  his  upper  garments  and  displays  his  bust  in  the 
full  daylight.  Good  shoulders  enough, — a  little 
marked, — traces  of  smallpox,  perhaps, — but  white. 
....  Crac  !  from  the  sergent-de-ville's  broad  palm 
on  the  white  shoulder !  Now  look  !  Vogue  la  ga- 
lore !  Out  comes  the  big  red  V — mark  of  the  hot 
iron; — he  had  blistered  it  out  pretty  nearly, — hadn't 
he? — the  old  rascal  VOLEUR,  branded  in  the  gal- 
leys at  Marseilles !  [Don't !  What  if  he  has  got 
something  like  this? — nobody  supposes  I  invented 
such  a  story.] 


THE  AUTOCEAT   OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.        121 

My  man  John,  who  used  to  drive  two  of  those  six 
equine  females  which  I  told  you  I  had  owned, — for, 
look  you,  my  friends,  simple  though  I  stand  here,  I 
am  one  that  has  been  driven  in  his  "  kerridge," — not 
using  that  term,  as  liberal  shepherds  do,  for  any  bat- 
tered old  shabby-genteel  go-cart  which  has  more 
than  one  wheel,  but  meaning  thereby  a  four-wheeled 
vehicle  with  a  pole, — my  man  John,  I  say,  was  a  re- 
tired soldier.  He  retired  unostentatiously,  as  many 
of  Her  Majesty's  modest  servants  have  done  before 
and  since.  John  told  me,  that  when  an  officer  thinks 
he  recognizes  one  of  these  retiring  heroes,  and  would 
know  if  he  has  really  been  in  the  service,  that  he 
may  restore  him,  if  possible,  to  a  grateful  country, 
he  comes  suddenly  upon  him,  and  says,  sharply, 
"  Strap  !  "  If  he  has  ever  worn  the  shoulder-strap, 
he  has  learned  the  reprimand  for  its  ill  adjustment. 
The  old  word  of  command  flashes  through  his  mus- 
cles, and  his  hand  goes  up  in  an  instant  to  the  place 
where  the  strap  used  to  be. 

[I  was  all  the  time  preparing  for  my  grand  coup, 
you  understand ;  but  I  saw  they  were  not  quite 
ready  for  it,  and  so  continued, — always  in  illustra- 
tion of  the  general  principle  I  had  laid  down.] 

Yes,  odd  things  come  out  in  ways  that  nobody 
thinks  of.  There  was  a  legend,  that,  when  the  Dan- 
ish pirates  made  descents  upon  the  English  coast, 
they  caught  a  few  Tartars  occasionally,  in  the  shape 
of  Saxons,  who  would  not  let  them  go, — on  the  con- 


122   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE, 

trary,  insisted  on  their  staying,  and,  to  make  sure  of 
it,  treated  them  as  Apollo  treated  Marsyas,  or  as 
Bartholinus  has  treated  a  fellow-creature  in  his  title- 
page,  and,  having  divested  them  of  the  one  essential 
and  perfectly  fitting  garment,  indispensable  in  the 
mildest  climates,  nailed  the  same  on  the  church-door 
as  we  do  the  banns  of  marriage,  in  terrorem. 

[There  was  a  laugh  at  this  among  some  of  the 
young  folks  ;  but  as  I  looked  at  our  landlady,  I  saw 
that  "  the  water  stood  in  her  eyes,"  as  it  did  in  Chris- 
tiana's when  the  interpreter  asked  her  about  the  spi- 
der, and  I  fancied,  but  wasn't  quite  sure  that  the 
schoolmistress  blushed,  as  Mercy  did  in  the  same 
conversation,  as  you  remember.] 

That  sounds  like  a  cock-and-bull-story, — said  the 
young  fellow  whom  they  call  John.  I  abstained 
from  making  Hamlet's  remark  to  Horatio,  and  con- 
tinued. 

Not  long  since,  the  church-wardens  were  repairing 
and  beautifying  an  old  Saxon  church  in  a  certain 
English  village,  and  among  other  things  thought  the 
doors  should  be  attended  to.  One  of  them  particu- 
larly, the  front-door,  looked  very  badly,  crusted,  as  it 
were,  and  as  if  it  would  be  all  the  better  for  scrap- 
ing. There  happened  to  be  a  microscopist  in  the 
village  who  had  heard  the  old  pirate  story,  and  he 
took  it  into  his  head  to  examine  the  crust  on  this 
door.  There  was  no  mistake  about  it;  it  was  a 
genuine  historical  document,  of  the  Ziska  drum-head 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   123 

pattern, — a  real  cutis  humana,  stripped  from  some 
old  Scandinavian  filibuster,  and  the  legend  was  true. 
My  friend,  the  Professor,  settled  an  important  his- 
torical and  financial  question  once  by  the  aid  of  an 
exceedingly  minute  fragment  of  a  similar  document. 
Behind  the  pane  of  plate-glass  which  bore  his  name 
and  title  burned  a  modest  lamp,  signifying  to  the 
passers-by  that  at  all  hours  of  the  night  the  slightest 
favors  (or  fevers)  were  welcome.  A  youth  who  had 
freely  partaken  of  the  cup  which  cheers  and  likewise 
inebriates,  following  a  moth-like  impulse  very  nat- 
ural under  the  circumstances,  dashed  his  fist  at  the 
light  and  quenched  the  meek  luminary, — breaking 
through  the  plate-glass,  of  course,  to  reach  it.  Now 
I  don't  want  to  go  into  minutiae  at  table,  you  know, 
but  a  naked  hand  can  no  more  go  through  a  pane  of 
thick  glass  without  leaving  some  of  its  cuticle,  to 
say  the  least,  behind  'it,  than  a  butterfly  can  go 
through  a  sausage-machine  without  looking  the 
worse  for  it.  The  Professor  gathered  up  the  frag- 
ments of  glass,  and  with  them  certain  very  minute 
but  entirely  satisfactory  documents  which  would 
have  identified  and  hanged  any  rogue  in  Christen- 
dom who  had  parted  with  them. — The  historical 
question,  Who  did  it?  and  the  financial  question, 
Who  paid  for  it  ?  were  both  settled  before  the  new 
lamp  was  lighted  the  next  evening. 

You  see,  my  friends,  what  immense   conclusions, 
touching   our   lives,   our   fortunes,  and   our    sacred 


124   THE  AUTOCKAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

honor,  may  be  reached  by  means  of  very  insignifi- 
cant premises.  This  is  eminently  true  of  manners 
and  forms  of  speech ;  a  movement  or  a  phrase  often 
tells  you  all  you  want  to  know  about  a  person. 
Thus,  "How's  your  health?"  (commonly  pronounced 
hadlth) — instead  of,  How  do  you  do  ?  or,  How  are 
you?  Or  calling  your  little  dark  entry  a  "hall,"  and 
your  old  rickety  one-horse  wagon  a  "  kerridge."  Or 
telling  a  person  who  has  been  trying  to  please  you 
that  he  has  given  you  pretty  good  "  sahtisfahction." 
Or  saying  that  you  "remember  of"  such  a  thing,  or 
that  you  have  been  "  stoppin' "  at  Deacon  Some- 
body's,— and  other  such  expressions.  One  of  my 
friends  had  a  little  marble  statuette  of  Cupid  in  the 
parlor  of  his  country-house, — bow,  arrows,  wings, 
and  all  complete.  A  visitor,  indigenous  to  the  region, 
looking  pensively  at  the  figure,  asked  the  lady  of  the 
house  "  if  that  was  a  statoo  of  her  deceased  infant  ?  " 
What  a  delicious,  though  somewhat  voluminous 
biography,  social,  educational,  and  aesthetic  in  that 
brief  question ! 

[Please  observe  with  what  Machiavellian  astute- 
ness I  smuggled  in  the  particular  offence  which  it 
was  my  object  to  hold  up  to  my  fellow-boarders, 
without  too  personal  an  attack  on  the  individual  at 
whose  door  it  lay.] 

That  was  an  exceedingly  dull  person  who  made  the 
remark,  Ex  pede  Herculem.  He  might  as  well  have 
said,  "  From  a  peck  of  apples  you  may  judge  of  the- 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   125 

barrel."  Ex  PEDE,  to  be  sure!  Read,  instead,  Ex 
ungue  minimi  digiti  pedis,  Herculem,  ejusque  patrem^ 
matrem,  avos  et  proavos,  filios,  nepotes  et  pronepotes  ! 
Talk  to  me  about  your  %  wv  arti !  Tell  me  about 
Cuvier's  getting  up  a  megatherium  from  a  tooth,  or 
Agassiz's  drawing  a  portrait  of  an  undiscovered  fish 
from  a  single  scale !  As  the  "  O  "  revealed  Giotto, 
— as  the  one  word  "  moi "  betrayed  the  Stratford- 
atte-Bowe-taught  Anglais, — so  all  a  man's  antece- 
dents and  possibilities  are  summed  up  in  a  single 
utterance  which  gives  at  once  the  gauge  of  his  edu- 
cation and  his  mental  organization. 

Possibilities,  Sir  ? — said  the  divinity-student ;  can't 
a  man  who  says  Haow  ?  arrive  at  distinction  ? 

Sir, — I  replied, — in  a  republic  all  things  are  pos- 
sible. But  the  man  with  a  future  has  almost  of 
necessity  sense  enough  to  see  that  any  odious  trick 
of  speech  or  manners  must  be  got  rid  of.  Doesn't 
Sydney  Smith  say  that  a  public  man  in  England 
never  gets  over  a  false  quantity  uttered  in  early  life  ? 
Our  public  men  are  in  little  danger  of  this  fatal  mis- 
step, as  few  of  them  are  in  the  habit  of  introducing 
Latin  into  their  speeches, — for  good  and  sufficient 
reasons.  But  they  are  bound  to  speak  decent  Eng- 
lish,— unless,  indeed,  they  are  rough  old  campaign- 
ers, like  General  Jackson  or  General  Taylor ;  in 
which  case,  a  few  scars  on  Priscian's  head  are  par- 
doned to  old  fellows  who  have  quite  as  many  on 
their  own,  and  a  constituency  of  thirty  empires  is 


126   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

not  at  all  particular,  provided  they  do  not  swear  in 
their  Presidential  Messages. 

However,  it  is  not  for  me  to  talk.  I  have  made 
mistakes  enough  in  conversation  and  print.  I  never 
find  them  out  until  they  are  stereotyped,  and  then  I 
think  they  rarely  escape  me.  I  have  no  doubt  I  shall 
make  half  a  dozen  slips  before  this  breakfast  is  over, 
and  remember  them  all  before  another.  How  one 
does  tremble  with  rage  at  his  own  intense  momentary 
stupidity  about  things  he  knows  perfectly  well,  and 
to  think  how  he  lays  himself  open  to  the  imperti- 
nences of  the  captatores  verborum^  those  useful  but 
humble  scavengers  of  the  language,  whose  business 
it  is  to  pick  up  what  might  offend  or  injure,  and  re- 
move it,  hugging  and  feeding  on  it  as  they  go !  I 
don't  want  to  speak  too  slightingly  of  these  verbal 
critics ; — how  can  I,  who  am  so  fond  of  talking  about 
errors  and  vulgarisms  of  speech?  Only  there  is  a 
difference  between  those  clerical  blunders  which  al- 
most every  man  commits,  knowing  better,  and  that 
habitual  grossness  or  meanness  of  speech  which  is 
unendurable  to  educated  persons,  from  anybody  that 
wears  silk  or  broadcloth. 

[I  write  down  the  above  remarks  this  morning, 
January  26th,  making  this  record  of  the  date  that  no- 
body may  think  it  was  written  in  wrath,  on  account 
of  any  particular  grievance  suffered  from  the  inva- 
sion of  any  individual  scarabosus  grammaticus.~\ 

1  wonder  if  anybody  ever  finds  fault  witb 


THE  AUTOCEAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   127 

anything  I  say  at  this  table  when  it  is  repeated  ?  I 
hope  they  do,  I  am  sure.  I  should  be  very  certain 
that  I  had  said  nothing  of  much  significance,  if  they 
did  not. 

Did  you  never,  in  walking  in  the  fields,  come 
across  a  large  flat  stone,  which  had  lain,  nobody 
knows  how  long,  just  where  you  found  it,  with  the 
grass  forming  a  little  hedge,  as  it  were,  all  round  it, 
close  to  its  edges, — and  have  you  not,  in  obedience 
to  a  kind  of  feeling  that  told  you  it  had  been  lying 
there  long  enough,  insinuated  your  stick  o.r  your  foot 
or  your  fingers  under  its  edge  and  turned  it  over  as 
a  housewife  turns  a  cake,  when  she  says  to  herself, 
"  It's  done  brown  enough  by  this  time  "  ?  What  an 
odd  revelation,  and  what  an  unforeseen  and  unpleas- 
ant surprise  to  a  small  community,  the  very  existence 
of  which  you  had  not  suspected,  until  the  sudden 
dismay  and  scattering  among  its  members  produced 
by  your  turning  the  old  stone  over  !  Blades  of  grass 
flattened  down,  colorless,  matted  together,  as  if  they 
had  been  bleached  and  ironed;  hideous  crawling 
creatures,  some  of  them  coleopterous  or  horny- 
shelled, — turtle-bugs  one  wants  to  call  them  ;  some 
of  them  softer,  but  cunningly  spread  out  and  com- 
pressed like  Lepine  watches  ;  (Nature  never  loses  a 
crack  or  a  crevice,  mind  you,  or  a  joint  in  a  tavern 
bedstead,  but  she  always  has  one  of  her  flat-pattern 
live  timekeepers  to  slide  into  it ;)  black,  glossy 
crickets,  with  their  long  filaments  sticking  out  like 


128   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

the  whips  of  four-horse  stage-coaches ;  motionless, 
slug-like  creatures,  young  larvae,  perhaps  more  hor- 
rible in  their  pulpy  stillness  than  even  in  the  infernal 
wriggle  of  maturity!  But  no  sooner  is  the  stone 
turned  and  the  wholesome  light  of  day  let  upon  this 
compressed  and  blinded  community  of  creeping 
things,  than  all  of  them  which  enjoy  the  luxury  of 
legs — and  some  of  them  have  a  good  many — rush 
round  wildly,  butting  each  other  and  everything  in 
their  way,  and  end  in  a  general  stampede  for  under- 
ground retreats  from  the  region  poisoned  by  sun- 
shine. Next  year  you  will  find  the  grass  growing 
tall  and  green  where  the  stone  lay  ;  the  ground-bird 
builds  her  nest  where  the  beetle  had  his  hole ;  the 
dandelion  and  the  buttercup  are  growing  there,  and 
the  broad  fans  of  insect-angels  open  and  shut  over 
their  golden  disks,  as  the  rhythmic  waves  of  blissful 
consciousness  pulsate  through  their  glorified  being. 

The  young  fellow  whom  they  call  John  saw 

fit  to  say,  in  his  very  familiar  way, — at  which  I  do 
not  choose  to  take  offence,  but  which  I  sometimes 
think  it  necessary  to  repress, — that  I  was  coming  it 
rather  strong  on  the  butterflies. 

No,  I  replied ;  there  is  meaning  in  each  of  those 
images, — the  butterfly  as  well  as  the  others.  The 
stone  is  ancient  error.  The  grass  is  human  nature 
borne  down  and  bleached  of  all  its  colour  by  it.  The 
shapes  which  are  found  beneath  are  the  crafty  beings 
that  thrive  in  darkness,  and  the  weaker  organisms 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   129 

kept  helpless  by  it.  He  who  turns  the  stone  over  is 
whosoever  puts  the  staff  of  truth  to  the  old  lying 
incubus,  no  matter  whether  he  do  it  with  a  serious 
face  or  a  laughing  one.  The  next  year  stands  for 
the  coming  time.  Then  shall  the  nature  which  had 
lain  blanched  and  broken  rise  in  its  full  stature  and 
native  hues  in  the  sunshine.  Then  shall  God's 
minstrels  build  their  nests  in  the  hearts  of  a  new- 
born humanity.  Then  shall  beauty — Divinity  taking 
outlines  and  color — light  upon  the  souls  of  men  as 
the  butterfly,  image  of  the  beatified  spirit  rising 
from  the  dust,  soars  from  the  shell  that  held  a  poor 
grub,  which  would  never  have  found  wings,  had  not 
the  stone  been  lifted. 

You  never  need  think  you  can  turn  over  any  old 
falsehood  without  a  terrible  squirming  and  scatter- 
ing of  the  horrid  little  population  that  dwells  under 
it. 

Every  real    thought    on    every  real   subject 

knocks  the  wind  out  of  somebody  or  other.  As  soon 
as  his  breath  comes  back,  he  very  probably  begins  to 
expend  it  in  hard  words.  These  are  the  best  evidence 
a  man  can  have  that  he  has  said  something  it  was 
time  to  say.  Dr.  Johnson  was  disappointed  in  the 
effect  of  one  of  his  pamphlets.  "  I  think  I  have  not 
been  attacked  enough  for  it,"  he  said ; — "  attack  is 
the  reaction ;  I  never  think  I  have  hit  hard  unless  it 
rebounds." 

If   a  fellow  attacked  my  opinions  in  print, 

6* 


130   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

would  I  reply  ?  Not  I.  Do  you  think  I  don't  un- 
derstand what  my  friend,  the  Professor,  long  ago 
called  the  hydrostatic  paradox  of  controversy  ? 

Don't  know  what  that  means  ? — Well,  I  will  tell 
you.  You  know,  that,  if  you  had  a  bent  tube,  one 
arm  of  which  was  of  the  size  of  a  pipe-stem,  and 
the  other  big  enough  to  hold  the  ocean,  water  would 
stand  at  the  same  height  in  one  as  in  the  other. 
Controversy  equalizes  fools  and  wise  men  in  the 
same  way, — and  the  fools  know  it. 

No,  but  I  often  read  what  they  say  about 

other  people.  There  are  about  a  dozen  phrases 
which  all  come  tumbling  along  together,  like  the 
tongs,  and  the  shovel,  and  the  poker,  and  the  brush, 
and  the  bellows,  in  one  of  those  domestic  avalanches 
that  everybody  knows.  If  you  get  one,  you  get  the 
whole  lot. 

What  are  they  ? — Oh,  that  depends  a  good  deal  on 
latitude  and  longitude.  Epithets  follow  the  isother- 
mal lines  pretty  accurately.  Grouping  them  in  two 
families,  one  finds  himself  a  clever,  genial,  witty,  wise, 
brilliant,  sparkling,  thoughtful,  distinguished,  cele- 
brated, illustrious  scholar  and  perfect  gentleman,  and 
first  writer  of  the  age;  or  a  dull,  foolish,  wicked, 
pert,  shallow,  ignorant,  insolent,  traitorous,  black- 
hearted outcast,  and  disgrace  to  civilization. 

What  do  I  think  determines  the  set  of  phrases  a 
man  gets  ? — Well,  I  should  say  a  set  of  influences 
something  like  these : — 1st.  Relationships,  political, 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   131 

religious,  social,  domestic.  2d.  Oysters ;  in  the  form 
of  suppers  given  to  gentlemen  connected  with  criti- 
cism. I  believe  in  the  school,  the  college,  and  the 
clergy ;  but  my  sovereign  logic,  for  regulating  public 
opinion — which  means  commonly  the  opinion  of  half 
a  dozen  of  the  critical  gentry — is  the  following: 
Major  proposition.  Oysters  au  naturel.  Minor  propo- 
sition. The  same  « scalloped."  Conclusion.  That 

(here  insert  entertainer's  name)  is  clever,  witty, 

wise,  brilliant, — and  the  rest. 

No,  it  isn't  exactly  bribery.     One  man  has 

oysters,  and  another  epithets.  It  is  an  exchange  of 
hospitalities ;  one  gives  a  "  spread  "  on  linen,  and  the 
other  on  paper, — that  is  all.  Don't  you  think  you 
and  I  should  be  apt  to  do  just  so,  if  we  were  in  the 
critical  line  ?  I  am  sure  I  couldn't  resist  the  soften- 
ing influences  of  hospitality.  I  don't  like  to  dine 
out,  you  know, — I  dine  so  well  at  our  own  table,  [our 
landlady  looked  radiant,]  and  the  company  is  so 
pleasant  [a  rustling  movement  of  satisfaction  among 
the  boarders] ;  but  if  I  did  partake  of  a  man's  salt, 
with  such  additions  as  that  article  of  food  requires 
to  make  it  palatable,  I  could  never  abuse  him,  and 
if  I  had  to  speak  of  him,  I  suppose  I  should  hang 
my  set  of  jingling  epithets  round  him  like  a  string 
of  sleigh-bells.  Good  feeling  helps  society  to  make 
liars  of  most  of  us, — not  absolute  liars,  but  such 
careless  handlers  of  truth  that  its  sharp  corners  get 
terribly  rounded.  I  love  truth  as  chiefest  among  the 


132   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

virtues ;  I  trust  it  runs  in  my  blood ;  but  I  would 
never  be  a  critic,  because  I  know  I  could  not  always 
tell  it.  I  might  write  a  criticism  of  a  book  that 
happened  to  please  me ;  that  is  another  matter. 

Listen,  Benjamin  Franklin !  This  is  for  you, 

and  such  others  of  tender  age  as  you  may  tell  it  to. 

When  we  are  as  yet  small  children,  long  before  the 
time  when  those  two  grown  ladies  offer  us  the  choice 
of  Hercules,  there  comes  up  to  us  a  youthful  angel, 
holding  in  his  right  hand  cubes  like  dice,  and  in  his 
left  spheres  like  marbles.  The  cubes  are  of  stainless 
ivory,  and  on  each  is  written  in  letters  of  gold — 
TRUTH.  The  spheres  are  veined  and  streaked  and 
spotted  beneath,  with  a  dark  crimson  flush  above, 
where  the  light  falls  on  them,  and  in  a  certain  aspect 
you  can  make  out  upon  every  one  of  them  the  three 
letters  L,  I,  E.  The  child  to  whom  they  are  offered 
very  probably  clutches  at  both.  The  spheres  are  the 
most  convenient  things  in  the  world ;  they  roll  with 
the  least  possible  impulse  just  where  the  child  would 
have  them.  The  cubes  will  not  roll  at  all ;  they  have 
a  great  talent  for  standing  still,  and  always  keep  right 
side  up.  But  very  soon  the  young  philosopher  finds 
that  things,  which  roll  so  easily  are  very  apt  to  roll 
into  the  wrong  corner,  and  to  get  out  of  his  way 
when  he  most  wants  them,  while  he  always  knows 
where  to  find  the  others,  which  stay  where  they  are 
left.  Thus  he  learns — thus  we  learn — to  drop  the 
streaked  and  speckled  globes  of  falsehood  and  to 


THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BEE AKF AST-TABLE.        133 

hold  fast  the  white  angular  blocks  of  truth.  But 
then  comes  Timidity,  and  after  her  Good-nature,  and 
last  of  all  Polite-behavior,  all  insisting  that  truth 
must  roll,  or  nobody  can  do  anything  with  it ;  and  so 
the  first  with  her  coarse  rasp,  and  the  second  with 
her  broad  file,  and  the  third  with  her  silken  sleeve,  do 
so  round  off  and  smooth  and  polish  the  snow-white 
cubes  of  truth,  that,  when  they  have  got  a  little  dingy 
by  use,  it  becomes  hard  to  tell  them  from  the  rolling 
spheres  of  falsehood. 

The  schoolmistress  was  polite  enough  to  say  that 
she  was  pleased  with  this,  and  that  she  would  read 
it  to  her  little  flock  the  next  day.  But  she  should 
tell  the  children,  she  said,  that  there  were  better  rea- 
sons for  truth  than  could  be  found  in  mere  experi- 
ence of  its  convenience  and  the  inconvenience  of 

lying- 
Yes, — I  said, — but  education  always  begins  through 
the  senses,  and  works  up  to  the  idea  of  absolute  right 
and  wrong.  The  first  thing  the  child  has  to  learn 
about  this  matter  is,  that  lying  is  unprofitable, — 
afterwards,  that  it  is  against  the  peace  and  dignity 
of  the  universe. 

Do  I  think  that  the  particular  form  of  lying 

often  seen  in  newspapers,  under  the  title,  "  From  our 
Foreign  Correspondent,"  does  any  harm  ? — Why, 
no, — I  don't  know  that  it  does.  I  suppose  it  doesn't 
really  deceive  people  any  more  than  the  "Arabian 
Nights  "  or  "  Gulliver's  Travels  "  do.  Sometimes  the 


134   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

writers  compile  too  carelessly,  though,  and  mix  up 
facts  out  of  geographies,  and  stories  out  of  the  penny 
papers,  so  as  to  mislead  those  who  are  desirous  of 
information.  I  cut  a  piece  out  of  one  of  the  papers, 
the  other  day,  which  contains  a  number  of  improba- 
bilities, and,  I  suspect,  misstatements.  I  will  send 
up  and  get  it  for  you,  if  you  would  like  to  hear 
it. Ah,  this  is  it ;  it  is  headed 

"  OUR  SUMATRA  CORRESPONDENCE. 

"  This  island  is  now  the  property  of  the  Stamford 
family, — having  been  won,  it  is  said,  in  a  raffle,  by 

Sir Stamford,  during  the  stock-gambling  mania 

of  the  South- Sea  Scheme.  The  history  of  this  gen- 
tleman may  be  found  in  an  interesting  series  of 
questions  (unfortunately  not  yet  answered)  contained 
in  the  '  Notes  and  Queries/  This  island  is  entirely 
surrounded  by  the  ocean,  which  here  contains  a  large 
amount  of  saline  substance,  crystallizing  in  cubes 
remarkable  for  their  symmetry,  and  frequently  dis- 
plays on  its  surface,  during  calm  weather,  the  rain- 
bow tints  of  the  celebrated  South- Sea  bubbles.  The 
summers  are  oppressively  hot,  and  the  winters  very 
probably  cold ;  but  this  fact  cannot  be  ascertained 
precisely,  as,  for  some  peculiar  reason,  the  mercury 
in  these  latitudes  never  shrinks,  as  in  more  northern 
regions,  and  thus  the  thermometer  is  rendered  useless 
in  winter. 

"  The  principal  vegetable  productions  of  the  island 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   135 

are  the  pepper  tree  and  the  bread-fruit  tree.  Pepper 
being  very  abundantly  produced,  a  benevolent  society 
was  organized  in  London  during  the  last  century  for 
supplying  the  natives  with  vinegar  and  oysters,  as  an 
addition  to  that  delightful  condiment.  [Note  received 
from  Dr.  D.  P.]  It  is  said,  however,  that,  as  the  oys- 
ters were  of  the  kind  called  natives  in  England,  the 
natives  of  Sumatra,  in -obedience  to  a  natural  instinct, 
refused  to  touch  them,  and  confined  themselves  en- 
tirely to  the  crew  of  the  vessel  in  which  they  were 
brought  over.  This  information  was  received  from 
one  of  the  oldest  inhabitants,  a  native  himself,  and 
exceedingly  fond  of  missionaries.  He  is  said  also  to 
be  very  skilful  in  the  cuisine  peculiar  to  the  island. 

"  During  the  season  of  gathering  the  pepper,  the 
persons  employed  are  subject  to  various  incommodi- 
ties,  the  chief  of  which  is  violent  and  long-continued 
sternutation,  or  sneezing.  Such  is  the  vehemence 
of  these  attacks,  that  the  unfortunate  subjects  of 
them  are  often  driven  backwards  for  great  distances 
at  immense  speed,  on  the  well-known  principle  of 
the  seolipile.  Not  being  able  to  see  where  they  are 
going,  these  poor  creatures  dash  themselves  to  pieces 
against  the  rocks  or  are  precipitated  over  the  cliffs, 
and  thus  many  valuable  lives  are  lost  annually.  As, 
during  the  whole  pepper-harvest,  they  feed  exclusively 
on  this  stimulant,  they  become  exceedingly  irritable. 
The  smallest  injury  is  resented  with  ungovernable 
rage.  A  young  man  suffering  from  the  pepper-fever^ 


136        THE  AUTOCKAT   OF  THE  BEE AKF AST-TABLE. 

as  it  is  called,  cudgelled  another  most  severely  for 
appropriating  a  superannuated  relative  of  trifling 
value,  and  was  only  pacified  by  having  a  present 
made  him  of  a  pig  of  that  peculiar  species  of  swine 
called  the  Peccavi  by  the  Catholic  Jews,  who,  it  is 
well  known,  abstain  from  swine's  flesh  in  imitation 
of  the  Mahometan  Buddhists. 

"  The  bread-tree  grows  abundantly.  Its  branches 
are  well  known  to  Europe  and  America  under  the 
familiar  name  of  maccaroni.  The  smaller  twigs  are 

o 

called  vermicelli.  They  have  a  decided  animal  flavor, 
as  may  be  observed  in  the  soups  containing  them. 
Maccaroni,  being  tubular,  is  the  favorite  habitat  of  a 
very  dangerous  insect,  which  is  rendered  peculiarly 
ferocious  by  being  boiled.  The  government  of  the 
island,  therefore,  never  allows  a  stick  of  it  to  be  ex- 
ported without  being  accompanied  by  a  piston  with 
which  its  cavity  may  at  any  time  be  thoroughly 
swept  out.  These  are  commonly  lost  or  stolen 
before  the  maccaroni  arrives  among  us.  It  therefore 
always  contains  many  of  these  insects,  which, 
however,  generally  die  of  old  age  in  the  shops,  so 
that  accidents  from  this  source  are  comparatively 
rare. 

"  The  fruit  of  the  bread-tree  consists  principally 
of  hot  rolls.  The  buttered-muffin  variety  is  supposed 
to  be  a  hybrid  with  the  cocoa-nut  palm,  the  cream 
found  on  the  milk  of  the  cocoa-nut  exuding  from  the 
hybrid  in  the  shape  of  butter,  just  as  the  ripe  fruit  is 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   137 

splitting,  so  as  to  fit  it  for  the  tea-table,  where  it  is 
commonly  served  up  with  cold  " 

There, — I  don't  want  to  read  any  more  of  it 

You  see  that  many  of  these  statements  are  highly 
improbable. — No,  I  shall  not  mention  the  paper. — No, 
neither  of  them  wrote  it,  though  it  reminds  me  of  the 
style  of  these  popular  writers.  I  think  the  fellow 
who  wrote  it  must  have  been  reading  some  of  their 
stories,  and  got  them  mixed  up  with  his  history  and 
geography.  I  don't  suppose  he  lies  ; — he  sells  it  to 
the  editor,  who  knows  how  many  squares  off  "  Suma- 
tra "  is.  The  editor,  who  sells  it  to  the  public 

By  the  way,  the  papers  have  been  very  civil — 
haven't  they? — to  the — the — what  d'ye  call  it? — 
"  Northern  Magazine," — isn't  it  ? — got  up  by  some 
of  those  Gome-outers,  down  East,  as  an  organ  for 
their,  local  peculiarities. 

The  Professor  has  been  to  see  me.  Came  in, 

glorious,  at  about  twelve  o'clock,  last  night.  Said 
he  had  been  with  "  the  boys."  On  inquiry,  found 
that  "  the  boys  "  were  certain  baldish  and  grayish  old 
gentlemen  that  one  sees  or  hears  of  in  various  im- 
portant stations  of  society.  The  Professor  is  one  of 
the  same  set,  but  he  always  talks  as  if  he  had  been 

out  of  college  about  ten  years,  whereas 

.  .  .  [Each  of  these  dots  was  a  little  nod,  which  the 
company  understood,  as  the  reader  will,  no  doubt.] 
He  calls  them  sometimes  "  the  boys,"  and  sometimes 
'•<  the  old  fellows."  Call  him  by  the  latter  title,  and 


138   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

see  how  he  likes  it. — Well,  he  came  in  last  night, 
glorious,  as  I  was  saying.  Of  course  I  don't  mean 
vinously  exalted ;  he  drinks  little  wine  on  such  occa- 
sions, and  is  well  known  to  all  the  Peters  and  Pat- 
ricks as  the  gentleman  who  always  has  indefinite 
quantities  of  black  tea  to  kill  any  extra  glass  of  red 
claret  he  may  have  swallowed.  But  the  Professor 
says  he  always  gets  tipsy  on  old  memories  at  these 
gatherings.  He  was,  I  forget  how  many  years  old 
when  he  went  to  the  meeting ;  just  turned  of  twenty 
now, — he  said.  He  made  various  youthful  proposals 
to  me,  including  a  duet  under  the  landlady's  daugh- 
ter's window.  He  had  just  learned  a  trick,  he  said, 
of  one  of  "  the  boys,"  of  getting  a  splendid  bass  out 
of  a  door-panel  by  rubbing  it  with  the  palm  of  his 
hand.  Offered  to  sing  "  The  sky  is  bright,"  accom- 
panying himself  on  the  front-door,  if  I  would  go 
down  and  help  in  the  chorus.  Said  there  never  was 
such  a  set  of  fellows  as  the  old  boys  of  the  set  he 
has  been  with.  Judges,  mayors,  Congress-men,  Mr. 
Speakers,  leaders  in  science,  clergymen  better  tha& 
famous,  and  famous  too,  poets  by  the  half-dozen, 
singers  with  voices  like  angels,  financiers,  wits,  three 
of  the  best  laughers  in  the  Commonwealth,  engi- 
neers, agriculturists, — all  forms  of  talent  and  knowl- 
edge he  pretended  were  represented  in  that  meeting. 
Then  he  began  to  quote  Byron  about  Santa  Croce, 
and  maintained  that  he  could  "  furnish  out  creation  " 
in  all  its  details  from  that  set  of  his.  He  would  like 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   139 

to  have  the  whole  boodle  of  them,  (I  remonstrated 
against  this  word,  but  the  Professor  said  it  was  a 
diabolish  good  word,  and  he  would  have  no  other,) 
with  their  wives  and  children,  shipwrecked  on  a  re- 
mote island,  just  to  see  how  splendidly  they  would 
reorganize  society.  They  could  build  a  city, — they 
have  done  it ;  make  constitutions  and  laws  ;  establish 
churches  and  lyceurns ;  teach  and  practise  the  heal- 
ing art ;  instruct  in  every  department ;  found  observ- 
atories ;  create  commerce  and  manufactures ;  write 
songs  and  hymns,  and  sing  'em,  and  make  instru- 
ments to  accompany  the  songs  with ;  lastly,  publish 
a  journal  almost  as  good  as  the  "  Northern  Maga- 
zine," edited  by  the  Gome-outers.  There  was  nothing 
they  were  not  up  to,  from  a  christening  to  a  hanging ; 
the  last,  to  be  sure,  could  never  be  called  for,  unless 
some  stranger  got  in  among  them. 

1  let  the  Professor  talk  as  long  as  he  liked ; 

it  didn't  make  much  difference  to  me  whether  it  was 
all  truth,  or  partly  made  up  of  pale  Sherry  and  simi- 
lar elements.  All  at  once  he  jumped  up  and  said, — 

Don't  you  want  to  hear  what  I  just  read  to  the 
boys? 

I  have  had  questions  of  a  similar  character  asked 
me  before,  occasionally.  A  man  of  iron  mould 
might  perhaps  say,  No!  I  am  not  a  man  of  iron 
mould,  and  said  that  I  should  be  delighted. 

The  Professor  then  read — with  that  slightly  sing- 
song cadence  which  is  observed  to  be  common  in 


140   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

poets  reading  their  own  verses — the  following  stan- 
zas ;  holding  them  at  a  focal  distance  of  about  two 
feet  and  a  half,  with  an  occasional  movement  back 
or  forward  for  better  adjustment,  the  appearance  of 
which  has  been  likened  by  some  impertinent  young 
folks  to  that  of  the  act  of  playing  on  the  trombone. 
His  eyesight  was  never  better ;  I  have  his  word  for  it. 


MARE  RUBRUM. 

FLASH  out  a  stream  of  blood-red  wine  ! — 

For  I  would  drink  to  other  days ; 
And  brighter  shall  their  memory  shine, 

Seen  flaming  through  its  crimson  blaze. 
The  roses  die,  the  summers  fade ; 

But  every  ghost  of  boyhood's  dream 
By  Nature's  magic  power  is  laid 

To  sleep  beneath  this  blood-red  stream. 

It  filled  the  purple  grapes  that  lay 

And  drank  the  splendors  of  the  sun 
Where  the  long  summer's  cloudless  day 

Is  mirrored  in  the  broad  Garonne  ; 
It  pictures  still  the  bacchant  shapes 

That  saw  their  hoarded  sunlight  shed, — 
The  maidens  dancing  on  the  grapes, — 

Their  milk-white  ankles  splashed  with  red. 

I 

Beneath  these  waves  of  crimson  lie, 

In  rosy  fetters  prisoned  fast, 
Those  flitting  shapes  that  never  die, 

The  swift- winged  visions  of  the  past. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Kiss  but  the  crystal's  mystic  rim, 

Each  shadow  rends  its  flowery  chain, 

Springs  in  a  bubble  from  its  brim 

And  walks  the  chambers  of  the  brain. 

Poor  Beauty !  time  and  fortune's  wrong 

No  form  nor  feature  may  withstand, — 
Thy  wrecks  are  scattered  all  along, 

Like  emptied  sea-shells  on  the  sand  ; — 
Yet,  sprinkled  with  this  blushing  rain, 

The  dust  restores  each  blooming  girl, 
As  if  the  sea-shells  moved  again 

Their  glistening  lips  of  pink  and  pearl. 

Here  lies  the  home  of  school-boy  life, 

With  creaking  stair  and  wind-swept  hall, 
And,  scarred  by  many  a  truant  knife, 

Our  old  initials  on  the  wall ; 
Here  rest — their  keen  vibrations  mute — 

The  shout  of  voices  known  so  well, 
The  ringing  laugh,  the  wailing  flute, 

The  chiding  of  the  sharp-tongued  bell. 

Here,  clad  in  burning  robes,  are  laid 

Life's  blossomed  joys,  untimely  shed  ; 
And  here  those  cherished  forms  have  strayed 

We  miss  awhile,  and  call  them  dead. 
What  wizard  fills  the  maddening  glass  ? 

What  soil  the  enchanted  clusters  grew, 
That  buried  passions  wake  and  pass 

In  beaded  drops  of  fiery  dew  ? 

Nay,  take  the  cup  of  blood-red  wine, — 
Our  hearts  can  boast  a  warmer  glow, 


142   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE. 

Filled  from  a  vintage  more  divine, — 

Calmed,  but  not  chilled  by  winter's  snow  1 

To-night  the  palest  wave  we  sip 

Kich  as  the  priceless  draught  shall  be 

That  wet  the  bride  of  Cana's  lip, — 
The  wedding  wine  of  Galilee  1 


VL 

SIN  has  many  tools,  but  a  lie  is  the  handle  which 
fits  them  all. 

1  think,  Sir, — said  the  divinity-student, — you 

must  intend  that  for  one  of  the  sayings  of  the  Seven 
Wise  Men  of  Boston  you  were  speaking  of  the  other 
day. 

I  thank  you,  my  young  friend, — was  my  reply, — 
but  I  must  say  something  better  than  that,  before  I 
could  pretend  to  fill  out  the  number. 

The  schoolmistress  wanted  to  know  how 

many  of  these  sayings  there  were  on  record,  and 
what,  and  by  whom  said. 

Why,  let  us  see, — there  is  that  one  of  Ben- 
jamin Franklin,  "  the  great  Bostonian,"  after  whom 
this  lad  was  named.  To  be  sure,  he  said  a  great 
many  wise  things, — and  I  don't  feel  sure  he  didn't 
borrow  this, — he  speaks  as  if  it  were  old.  But  then 
he  applied  it  so  neatly !— 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   143 

"  He  that  has  once  done  you  a  kindness  will  be 
more  ready  to  do  you  another  than  he  whom  you 
yourself  have  obliged." 

Then  there  is  that  glorious  Epicurean  paradox, 
uttered  by  my  friend,  the  Historian,  in  one  of  his 
flashing  moments : — 

"  Give  us  the  luxuries  of  life,  and  we  will  dispense 
with  its  necessaries." 

To  these  must  certainly  be  added  that  other  say- 
ing of  one  of  the  wittiest  of  men  : — 

"  Good  Americans,  when  they  die,  go  to  Paris." 

The  divinity-student  looked  grave  at  this,  but 

said  nothing. 

The  schoolmistress  spoke  out,  and  said  she  didn't 
think  the  wit  meant  any  irreverence.  It  was  only 
another  way  of  saying,  Paris  is  a  heavenly  place 
after  New  York  or  Boston. 

A  jaunty -looking  person,  who  had  come  in  with 
the  young  fellow  they  call  John, — evidently  a  stran- 
ger,— said  there  was  one  more  wise  man's  saying 
that  he  had  heard ;  it  was  about  our  place,  but  he 
didn't  know  who  said  it. — A  civil  curiosity  was 
manifested  by  the  company  to  hear  the  fourth  wise 
saying.  I  heard  him  distinctly  whispering  to  the 
young  fellow  who  brought  him  to  dinner,  Shall  I 
tell  it?  To  which  the  answer  was,  Go  ahead! — 
Well, —  he  said, — this  was  what  I  heard  : — 

"  Boston  State- House  is  the  hub  of  the  solar  sys- 
tem. You  couldn't  pry  that  out  of  a  Boston  man, 


144        THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

if  you  had  the  tire  of  all  creation  straightened  out 
for  a  crowbar." 

Sir, — said  I, — I  am  gratified  with  your  remark.  It 
expresses  with  pleasing  vivacity  that  which  I  have 
sometimes  heard  uttered  with  malignant  dulness. 
The  satire  of  the  remark  is  essentially  true  of  Boston, 
—  and  of  all  other  considerable — and  inconsiderable 
— places  with  which  I  have  had  the  privilege  of 
being  acquainted.  Cockneys  think  London  is  the 
only  place  in  the  world.  Frenchmen — you  remem- 
ber the  line  about  Paris,  the  Court,  the  World,  etc. — 
I  recollect  well,  by  the  way,  a  sign-  in  that  city  which 
ran  thus :  "  Hotel  de  PUnivers  et  des  Etats  Unis  "  ; 
and  as  Paris  is  the  universe  to  a  Frenchman,  of 
course  the  United  States  are  outside  of  it. — "  See 
Naples  and  then  die." — It  is  quite  as  bad  with 
smaller  places.  I  have  been  about,  lecturing,  you 
know,  and  have  found  the  following  propositions  to 
hold  true  of  all  of  them. 

1.  The  axis  of  the  earth  sticks  out  visibly  through 
the  centre  of  each  and  every  town  or  city. 

2.  If  more  than  fifty  years  have  passed  since  its 
foundation,  it  is  affectionately  styled  by  the  inhabi- 
tants the  "good  old  town  of" (whatever  its  name 

may  happen  to  be.) 

3.  Every  collection  of  its  inhabitants  that  comes 
together  to  listen  to  a  stranger  is  invariably  declared 
to  be  a  "  remarkably  intelligent  audience." 

4.  The  climate  of  the  place  is  particularly  favor- 
able to  longevity. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    145 

5.  It  contains  several  persons  of  vast  talent  little 
known  to  the  world.  (One  or  two  of  them,  you 
may  perhaps  chance  to  remember,  sent  short  pieces 
to  the  "  Pactolian "  some  time  since,  which  were 
"  respectfully  declined.") 

Boston  is  just  like  other  places  of  its  size ; — only 
perhaps,  considering  its  excellent  fish-market,  paid 
fire-department,  superior  monthly  publications,  and 
correct  habit  of  spelling  the  English  language,  it  has 
some  right  to  look  down  on  the  mob  of  cities.  I'll 
tell  you,  though,  if  you  want  to  know  it,  what  is  the 
real  offence  of  Boston.  It  drains  a  large  'water-shed 
of  its  intellect,  and  will  not  itself  be  drained.  If  it 
would  only  send  away  its  first-rate  men,  instead  of 
of  its  second-rate  ones,  (no  offence  to  the  well-known 
exceptions,  of  which  we  are  always  proud.)  we 
should  be  spared  such  epigrammatic  remarks  as  that 
which  the  gentleman  has  quoted.  There  can  never 
be  a  real  metropolis  in  this  country,  until  the  biggest 
centre  can  drain  the  lesser  ones  of  their  talent  and 
wealth. — I  have  observed,  by  the  way,  that  the  people 
who  really  live  in  two  great  cities  are  by  no  means 
so  jealous  of  each  other,  as  are  those  of  smaller 
cities  situated  within  the  intellectual  basin,  or  suc- 
tion-range, of  one  large  one,  of  the  pretensions  of 
any  other.  Don't  you  see  why?  Because  their 
promising  young  author  and  rising  lawyer  and  large 
capitalist  have  been  drained  off  to  the  neighboring 
big  city, — their  prettiest  girl  has  been  exported  to 

7 


146   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

the  same  market ;  all  their  ambition  points  there, 
and  all  their  thin  gilding  of  glory  comes  from  there. 
I  hate  little  toad-eating  cities. 

Would  I  be  so  good  as  to  specify  any  par- 
ticular example? — Oh, — an  example?  Did  you  ever 
see  a  bear-trap  ?  Never  ?  Well,  shouldn't  you  like 
to  see  me  put  my  foot  into  one  ?  With  sentiments 
of  the  highest  consideration  I  must  beg  leave  to  be 
excused. 

Besides,  some  of  the  smaller  cities  are  charming. 
If  they  have  an  old  church  or  two,  a  few  stately 
mansions  of  former  grandees,  here  and  there  an  old 
dwelling  with  the  second  story  projecting,  (for  the 
convenience  of  shooting  the  Indians  knocking  at  the 
front-door  with  their  tomahawks,) — if  they  have,  scat- 
tered about,  those  mighty  square  houses  built  some- 
thing more  than  half  a  century  ago,  and  standing 
like  architectural  boulders  dropped  by  the  former 
diluvium  of  wealth,  whose  refluent  wave  has  left 
them  as  its  monument, — if  they  have  gardens  with 
elbowed  apple-trees  that  push  their  branches  over 
the  high  board-fence  and  drop  their  fruit  on  the 
side- walk, — if  they  have  a  little  grass  in  the  side- 
streets,  enough  to  betoken  quiet  without  proclaiming 
decay, — I  think  I  could  go  to  pieces,  after  my  life's 
work  were  done,  in  one  of  those  tranquil  places,  as 
sweetly  as  in  any  cradle  that  an  old  man  may  be 
rocked  to  sleep  in.  I  visit  such  spots  always  with 
infinite  delight.  My  friend,  the  Poet,  says,  that 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   147 

rapidly  growing  towns  are  most  unfavorable  to  the 
imaginative  and  reflective  faculties.  Let  a  man  live 
in  one  of  these  old  quiet  places,  he  says,  and  the 
wine  of  his  soul,  which  is  kept  thick  and  turbid  by 
the  rattle  of  busy  streets,  settles,  and,  as  you  hold  it 
up,  you  may  see  the  sun  through  it  by  day  and  the 
stars  by  night. 

Do  I  think  that  the  little  villages  have  the 

conceit  of  the  great  towns? — I  don't  believe  there  is 
much  difference.  You  know  how  they  read  Pope's 
line  in  the  smallest  town  in  our  State  of  Massa- 
chusetts ? — Well,  they  read  it 

"All  are  but  parts  of  one  stupendous  HULL  1 " 

Every  person's  feelings  have  a  front-door  and 

a  side-door  by  which  they  may  be  entered.  The 
front-door  is  on  the  street.  Some  keep  it  always 
open ;  some  keep  it  latched ;  some,  locked ;  some, 
bolted, — with  a  chain  that  will  let  you  peep  in,  but 
not  get  in  ;  and  some  nail  it  up,  so  that  nothing  can 
pass  its  threshold.  This  front-door  leads  into  a  pas- 
sage which  opens  into  an  ante-room,  and  this  into 
the  interior  apartments.  The  side-door  opens  at 
once  into  the  sacred  chambers. 

There  is  almost  always  at  least  one  key  to  this 
side- door.  This  is  carried  for  years  hidden  in  a 
mother's  bosom.  Fathers,  brothers,  sisters,  and 
friends,  often,  but  by  no  means  so  universally,  have 
duplicates  of  it.  The  wedding-ring  conveys  a  right 
to  one;  alas,  if  none  is  given  with  it! 


148   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

If  nature  or  accident  has  put  one  of  these  keys 
into  the  hands  of  a  person  who  has  the  torturing  in- 
stinct, I  can  only  solemnly  pronounce  the  words  that 
Justice  utters  over  its  doomed  victim, —  The  Lord 
have  mercy  on  your  soul !  You  will  probably  go 
mad  within  a  reasonable  time, — or,  if  you  are  a  man, 
run  off  and  die  with  your  head  on  a  curb-stone,  in 
Melbourne  or  San  Francisco.  —  or,  if  you  are  a 
woman,  quarrel  and  break  your  heart,  or  turn  into 
a  pale,  jointed  petrifaction  that  moves  about  as  if  it 
were  alive,  or  play  some  real  life-tragedy  or  other. 

Be  very  careful  to  whom  you  trust  one  of  these 
keys  of  the  side-door.  The  fact  of  possessing  one 
renders  those  even  who  are  dear  to  you  very  terrible 
at  times.  You  can  keep  the  world  out  from  your 
front-door,  or  receive  visitors  only  when  you  are 
ready  for  them ;  but  those  of  your  own  flesh  and 
blood,  or  of  certain  grades  of  intimacy,  can  come  in 
at  the  side-door,  if  they  will,  at  any  hour  and  in  any 
mood.  Some  of  them  have  a  scale  of  your  whole 
nervous  system,  and  can  play  all  the  gamut  of  your 
sensibilities  in  semitones, — touching  the  naked  nerve- 
pulps  as  a  pianist  strikes  the  keys  of  his  instru- 
ment. I  am  satisfied  that  there  are  as  great  masters 
of  this  nerve-playing  as  Vieuxtemps  or  Thalberg  in 
their  lines  of  performance.  Married  life  is  the  school 
in  which  the  most  accomplished  artists  in  this  de- 
partment are  found.  A  delicate  woman  is  the  best 
instrument ;  she  has  such  a  magnificent  compass  of 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   149 

sensibilities !  From  the  deep  inward  moan  which 
follows  pressure  on  the  great  nerves  of  right,  to  the 
sharp  cry  as  the  filaments  of  taste  are  struck  with  a 
crashing  sweep,  is  a  range  which  no  other  instrument 
possesses.  A  few  exercises  on  it  daily  at  home  fit  a 
man  wonderfully  for  his  habitual  labors,  and  refresh 
him  immensely  as  he  returns  from  them.  No  stranger 
can  get  a  great  many  notes  of  torture  out  of  a  human 
soul ;  it  takes  one  that  knows  it  well, — parent,  child, 
brother,  sister,  intimate.  Be  very  careful  to  whom 
you  give  a  side-door  key ;  too  many  have  them  al- 
ready. 

You  remember  the  old  story  of  the  tender- 
hearted man,  who  placed  a  frozen  viper  in  his  bosom, 
and  was  stung  by  it  when  it  became  thawed  ?  If  we 
take  a  cold-blooded  creature  into  our  bosom,  better 
that  it  should  sting  us  and  we  should  die  than  that 
its  chill  should  slowly  steal  into  our  hearts ;  warm  it 
we  never  can!  I  have  seen  faces  of  women  that 
were  fair  to  look  upon,  yet  one  could  see  that  the 
icicles  were  forming  round  these  women's  hearts.  I 
knew  what  freezing  image  lay  on  the  white  breasts 
beneath  the  laces ! 

A  very  simple  intellectual  mechanism  answers  the 
necessities  of  friendship,  and  even  of  the  most  inti- 
mate relations  of  life.  If  a  watch  tells  us  the  hour 
and  the  minute,  we  can  be  content  to  carry  it  about 
with  us  for  a  life-time,  though  it  has  no  second-hand, 
and  is  not  a  repeater,  nor  a  musical  watch, — though 


150    THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

it  is  not  enamelled  nor  jewelled, — in  short,  though  it 
has  little  beyond  the  wheels  required  for  a  trust- 
worthy instrument,  added  to  a  good  face  and  a  pair 
of  useful  hands.  The  more  wheels  there  are  in  a 
watch  or  a  brain,  the  more  trouble  they  are  to  take 
care  of.  The  movements  of  exaltation  which  belong 
to  genius  are  egotistic  by  their  very  nature.  A  calm, 
clear  mind,  not  subject  to  the  spasms  and  crises 
which  are  so  often  met  with  in  creative  or  intensely 
perceptive  natures,  is  the  best  basis  for  love  or  friend- 
ship.— Observe,  I  am  talking  about  minds.  I  won't 
say,  the  more  intellect,  the  less  capacity  for  loving ; 
for  that  would  do  wrong  to  the  understanding  and 
reason ; — but,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  brain  often 
runs  away  with  the  heart's  best  blood,  which  gives 
the  world  a  few  pages  of  wisdom  or  sentiment 
or  poetry,  instead  of  making  one  other  heart  happy, 
I  have  no  question. 

If  one's  intimate  in  love  or  friendship  cannot  or 
does  not  share  all  one's  intellectual  tastes  or  pursuits, 
that  is  a  small  matter.  Intellectual  companions  can 
be  found  easily  in  men  and  books.  After  all,  if  we 
think  of  it,  most  of  the  world's  loves  and  friendship's 
have  been  between  people  that  could  not  read  nor 
spell. 

But  to  radiate  the  heat  of  the  affections  into  a  clod, 
which  absorbs  all  that  is  poured  into  it,  but  never 
warms  beneath  the  sunshine  of  smiles  or  the  pressure 
of  hand  or  lip,  —  this  is  the  great  martyrdom  of  sen- 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   151 

sitive  beings, — most  of  all  in  that  perpetual  auto  da 
fe  where  young  womanhood  is  the  sacrifice. 

You  noticed,  perhaps,  what  I  just  said  about 

the  loves  and  friendships  of  illiterate  persons^ — that 
is,  of  the  human  race,  with  a  few  exceptions  here 
and  there.  I  like  books, — I  was  born  and  bred 
among  them,  and  have  the  easy  feeling,  when  I  get 
into  their  presence,  that  a  stable-boy  has  among 
horses.  I  don't  think  I  undervalue  them  either  as 
companions  or  as  instructors.  But  I  can't  help  re- 
membering that  the  world's  great  men  have  not 
commonly  been  great  scholars,  nor  its  great  scholars 
great  men.  The  Hebrew  patriarchs  had  small  libra- 
ries, I  think,  if  any  ;  yet  they  represent  to  our  imag- 
inations a  very  complete  idea  of  manhood,  and,  I 
think,  if  we  could  ask  in  Abraham  to  dine  with  us 
men  of  letters  next  Saturday,  we  should  feel  honored 
by  his  company. 

What  I  wanted  to  say  about  books  is  this :  that 
there  are  times  in  which  every  active  mind  feels 
itself  above  any  and  all  human  books. 

1  think  a  man  must  have  a  good  opinion  of 

himself,  Sir, — said  the  divinity-student, — who  should 
feel  himself  above  Shakspeare  at  any  time. 

My  young  friend,  —  I  replied,  —  the  man  who  is 
never  conscious  of  a  state  of  feeling  or  of  intellectual 
effort  entirely  beyond  expression  by  any  form  of  words 
whatsoever  is  a  mere  creature  of  language.  I  can 
hardly  believe  there  are  any  such  men.  Why,  think 


152   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

for  a  moment  of  the  power  of  music.  The  nerves 
that  make  us  alive  to  it  spread  out  (so  the  Professor 
tells  me)  in  the  most  sensitive  region  of  the  marrow, 
just  where  it  is  widening  to  run  upwards  into  the 
hemispheres.  It  has  its  seat  in  the  region  of  sense 
rather  than  of  thought.  Yet  it  produces  a  continu- 
ous and,  as  it  were,  logical  sequence  of  emotional 
and  intellectual  changes;  but  how  different  from 
trains  of  thought  proper !  how  entirely  beyond  the 
reach  of  symbols !  — Think  of  human  passions  as 
compared  with  all  phrases  !  Did  you  ever  hear  of  a 
man's  growing  lean  by  the  reading  of  "  Romeo  and 
Juliet,"  or  blowing  his  brains  out  because  Desdemona 
was  maligned?  There  are  a  good  many  symbols, 
even,  that  are  more  expressive  than  words.  I  re- 
member a  young  wife  who  had  to  part  with  her  hus- 
band for  a  time.  She  did  not  write  a  mournful 
poem ;  indeed,  she  was  a  silent  person,  and  perhaps 
hardly  said  a  word  about  it ;  but  she  quietly  turned 
of  a  deep  orange  color  with  jaundice.  A  great  many 
people  in  this  world  have  but  one  form  of  rhetoric 
for  their  profoundest  experiences, — namely,  to  waste 
away  and  die.  When  a  man  can  read,  his  paroxysm 
of  feeling  is  passing.  When  he  can  read,  his  thought 
has  slackened  its  hold. — You  talk  about  reading 
Shakspeare,  using  him  as  an  expression  for  the 
highest  intellect,  and  you  wonder  that  any  common 
person  should  be  so  presumptuous  as  to  suppose  his 
thought  can  rise  above  the  text  which  lies  before 


THE  AUTOCEAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   153 

him.  But  think  a  moment.  A  child's  reading  of 
Shakspeare  is  one  thing,  and  Coleridge's  or  Schle- 
gel's  reading  of  him  is  another.  The  saturation- 
point  of  each  mind  differs  from  that  of  every  other. 
But  I  think  it  is  as  true  for  the  small  mind  which 
can  only  take  up  a  little  as  for  the  great  one  which 
takes  up  much,  that  the  suggested  trains  of  thought 
and  feeling  ought  always  to  rise  above — not  the 
author,  but  the  reader's  mental  version  of  the  author, 
whoever  he  may  be. 

I  think  most  readers  of  Shakspeare  sometimes 
find  themselves  thrown  into  exalted  mental  condi- 
tions like  those  produced  by  music.  Then  they  may 
drop  the  book,  to  pass  at  once  into  the  region  of 
thought  without  words.  We  may  happen  to  be 
very  dull  folks,  you  and  I,  and  probably  are,  unless 
there  is  some  particular  reason  to  suppose  the  con- 
trary. But  we  get  glimpses  now  and  then  of  a 
sphere  of  spiritual  possibilities,  where  we,  dull  as  we 
are  now,  may  sail  in  vast  circles  round  the  largest 
compass  of  earthly  intelligences. 

1  confess  there  are  times  when  I  feel  like  the 

friend  I  mentioned  to  you  some  time  ago, — I  hate 
the  very  sight  of  a  book.  Sometimes  it  becomes 
almost  a  physical  necessity  to  talk  out  what  is  in 
the  mind,  before  putting  anything  else  into  it.  It  is 
very  bad  to  have  thoughts  and  feelings,  which  were 
meant  to  come  out  in  talk,  strike  in,  as  they  say  of 
some  complaints  that  ought  to  show  outwardly. 

7* 


154   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

I  always  believed  in  life  rather  than  in  books.  I 
suppose  every  day  of  earth,  with  its  hundred  thou- 
sand deaths  and  something  more  of  births, — with  its 
loves  and  hates,  its  triumphs  and  defeats,  its  pangs 
and  blisses,  has  more  of  humanity  in  it  than  all  the 
books  that  were  ever  written,  put  together.  I  believe 
the  flowers  growing  at  this  moment  send  up  more 
fragrance  to  heaven  than  was  ever  exhaled  from  all 
the  essences  ever  distilled. 

Don't  I  read  up  various  matters  to  talk  about 

at  this  table  or  elsewhere  ? — No,  that  is  the  last  thing 
I  would  do.  I  will  tell  you  my  rule.  Talk  about 
those  subjects  you  have  had  long  in  your  mind,  and 
listen  to  what  others  say  about  subjects  you  have 
studied  but  recently.  Knowledge  and  timber 
shouldn't  be  much  used  till  they  are  seasoned. 

Physiologists  and  metaphysicians  have  had 

their  attention  turned  a  good  deal  of  late  to  the 
automatic  and  involuntary  actions  of  the  mind.  Put 
an  idea  into  your  intelligence  and  leave  it  there  an 
hour,  a  day,  a  year,  without  ever  having  occasion  to 
refer  to  it.  "When,  at  last,  you  return  to  it,  you  do 
not  find  it  as  it  was  when  acquired.  It  has  domi- 
ciliated  itself,  so  to  speak, — become  at  home, — 
entered  into  relations  with  your  other  thoughts,  and 
integrated  itself  with  the  whole  fabric  of  the  mind. 
— Or  take  a  simple  and  familiar  example  ;  Dr.  Car- 
penter has  adduced  it.  You  forget  a  name,  in  con- 
versation,— go  on  talking,  without  making  any  effort 


OTTR    BENJ.    FRANKLIN. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   155 

to  recall  it, — and  presently  the  mind  evolves  it  by 
its  own  involuntary  and  unconscious  action,  while 
you  were  pursuing  another  train  of  thought,  and  the 
name  rises  of  itself  to  your  lips. 

There  are  some  curious  observations  I  should  like 
to  make  about  the  mental  machinery,  but  I  think  we 
are  getting  rather  didactic. 

1  should  be  gratified,  if  Benjamin  Franklin 

would  let  me  know  something  of  his  progress  in  the 
French  language.  I  rather  liked  that  exercise  he 
read  us  the  other  day,  though  I  must  confess  I  should 
hardly  dare  to  translate  it,  for  fear  some  people  in  a 
remote  city  where  I  once  lived  might  think  I  was 
drawing  their  portraits. 

Yes,  Paris  is  a  famous  place  for  societies.  I 

don't  know  whether  the  piece  I  mentioned  from  the 
French  author  was  intended  simply  as  Natural  His- 
tory, or  whether  there  was  not  a  little  malice  in 
his  description.  At  any  rate,  when  I  gave  my  trans- 
lation to  B.  F.  to  turn  back  again  into  French,  one 
reason  was  that  I  thought  it  would  sound  a  little 
bald  in  English,  and  some  people  might  think  it  was 
meant  to  have  some  local  bearing  or  other, — which 
the  author,  of  course,  didn't  mean,  inasmuch  as  he 
could  not  be  acquainted  with  anything  on  this  side 
of  the  water. 

[The  above  remarks  were  addressed  to  the  school- 
mistress, to  whom  I  handed  the  paper  after  looking 
it  over.  The  divinity-student  came  and  read  over 


156        THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

her  shoulder, — very  curious,  apparently,  but  his  eyes 
wandered,  I  thought.  Fancying  that  her  breathing 
was  somewhat  hurried  and  high,  or  thoracic,  as  my 
friend,  the  Professor,  calls  it,  I  watched  her  a  little 
more  closely. — It  is  none  of  my  business. — After  all, 
it  is  the  imponderables  that  move  the  world, — heat, 
electricity,  love. — Habet  ?~\ 

This  is  the  piece  that  Benjamin  Franklin  made 
into  boarding-school  French,  such  as  you  see  here ; 
don't  expect  too  much ; — the  mistakes  give  a  relish 
to  it,  I  think. 

LES    SOCIETES   POLYPHYSIOPHILOSOPHIQUES. 

CES  Socie'tes  Ik  sont  une  Institution  pour  suppleer  aux  besoins 
d'esprit  et  de  cceur  de  ces  individus  qui  ont  survecu  &  leurs  Emo- 
tions k  1'egard  du  beau  sexe,  et  qui  n'ont  pas  la  distraction  de 
1'habitude  de  boire. 

Pour  devenir  membre  d'une  de  ces  Socie'tes,  on  doit  avoir  le 
moins  de  cheveux  possible.  S'il  y  en  reste  plusieurs  qui  resistent 
aux  ddpilatoires  naturelles  et  autres,  on  doit  avoir  quelques  con- 
naissances,  n'importe  dans  quel  genre.  D&s  le  moment  qu'on 
ouvre  la  porte  de  la  Societe,  on  a  un  grand  interet  dans  toutes 
les  choses  dont  on  ne  sait  rien.  Ainsi,  un  microscopiste  demontre 
un  nouveau  flexor  du  tarse  d'un  melolontha  vulgaris.  Douze  sa- 
vans  improvises,  portans  des  besides,  et  qui  ne  connaissent  rien  des 
insectes,  si  ce  n'est  les  morsures  du  culex,  se  precipitent  sur  1'instru- 
ment,  et  voient — une  grande  bulle  d'air,  dont  ils  s'emerveillent  avec 
effusion.  Ce  qui  est  un  spectacle  plein  d'instruction — pour  ceux 
qui  ne  sont  pas  de  ladite  Societe.  Tous  les  membres  regardent  les 
chimistes  en  particulier  avec  un  air  d'intelligence  parfaite  pendant 
qu'ils  prouvent  dans  un  discours  d'une  demiheure  que  O!]  N3  H5  C8 
etc.  font  quelque  chose  qui  n'est  bonne  k  rien,  mais  qui  probable- 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   157 

ment  a  une  odeur  tres  desagreable,  selon  1'habitude  des  produits 
chimiques.  Apres  cela  vient  un  mathematicien  qui  vous  bourre 
avec  des  a-{-b  et  vous  rapporte  enfin  un  x-\-y,  dont  vous  n'avez  pas 
besoin  et  qui  ne  cbange  nullement  vos  relations  avec  la  vie.  Un 
naturaliste  vous  parle  des  formations  speciales  des  animaux  exces- 
sivement  inconnus,  dont  vous  n'avez  jamais  soup9onne'  1'existence. 
Ainsi  il  vous  decrit  les  foUicules  de  V appendix  vermiformis  d'un  dzig- 
guetai.  Vous  ne  savez  pas  ce  que  c'est  qu'un  fotticule.  Yous  ne 
savez  pas  ce  que  c'est  qu'un  appendix  uermiformis.  Vous  n'avez 
jamais  entendu  parler  du  dzigguetai.  Ainsi  vous  gagnez  toutes  ces 
connaissances  k  la  fois,  qui  s'attachent  a  votre  esprit  comme  1'eau 
adhe're  aux  plumes  d'un  canardT  On  connait  toutes  les  langues 
ex  officio  en  devenant  membre  d'une  de  ces  Societes.  Aiusi 
quand  on  entend  lire  un  Essai  sur  les  dialectes  Tchutchiens,  on 
comprend  tout  cela  de  suite,  et  s'instruit  (Snormement. 

II  y  a  deux  especes  d'individus  qu'on  trouve  toujours  &  ces 
Societes  :  1°  Le  membre  a  questions  ;  2°  Le  membre  a  "  Bylaws." 

La  question  est  une  specialite.  Celui  qui  en  fait  metier  ne  fait 
jamais  des  reponses.  La  question  est  une  maniere  tres  commode 
de  dire  les  choses  suivantes :  "  Me  voila !  Je  ne  suis  pas  fossil, 
moi, — je  respire  encore  !  J'ai  des  idees, — voyez  mon  intelligence  ! 
Vous  ne  croyiez  pas,  vous  autres,  que  je  savais  quelque  chose  de 
cela  !  Ah,  nous  avons  un  pen  de  sagacite,  voyez  vous  !  Nous  ne 
sommes  nullement  la  bete  qu'on  pense  !" — Lefaiseur  de  questions 
donne  peu  <T attention  aux  reponses  qu'on  fait ;  ce  n'est  pas  Id  dans 
sa  specialite'. 

Le  membre  a  "  Bylaws  "  est  le  bouchon  de  toutes  les  emotions 
mousseuses  et  genereuses  qui  se  montrent  dans  la  Societe.  C'est 
un  empereur  manque, — un  tyran  a  la  troisi&me  trituration.  C'est 
un  esprit  dur,  borne,  exact,  grand  dans  les  petitesses,  petit  dans 
les  grandeurs,  selon  le  mot  du  grand  Jefferson.  On  ne  1'aime  pas 
dans  la  Societe,  rnais  on  le  respecte  et  on  le  craint.  II  n'y  a  qu'un 
mot  pour  ce  membre  audessus  de  "  Bylaws."  Ce  mot  est  pour 
lui  ce  que  1'Om  est  aux  Hindous.  C'est  sa  religion  ;  il  n'y  a  rien 
audela.  Ce  mot  1£  c'est  la  CONSTITUTION  ! 


158        THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Lesdites  Societes  publient  des  feuilletons  de  terns  en  terns.  On 
les  trouve  abandonnes  &  sa  porte,  nus  comme  des  enfans  nouveau- 
nes,  faute  de  membrane  cutanee,  ou  meme  papyracee.  Si  on 
aime  la  botanique,  on  y  trouve  une  memoire  sur  les  coquilles  ;  si 
on  fait  des  etudes  zoblogiques,  on  trouve  un  grand  tas  de  q',/ — 1, 
ce  qui  doit  etre  muniment  plus  commode  que  les  encyclopedies. 
Ainsi  il  est  clair  comme  la  metaphysique  qu'on  doit  devenir  mem- 
bre  d'une  Societe  telle  que  nous  decrivons. 

Recette  pour  le  DepUatoire  Physiophilosophique. 
Chaux  vive  Ib.  ss.     Eau  bouillante  Oj. 

Depilez  avec.    Polissez  ensuite. 

% 

1  told  the  boy  that  his  translation  into  French 

was  creditable  to  him ;  and  some  of  the  company 
wishing  to  hear  what  there  was  in  the  piece  that 
made  me  smile,  I  turned  it  into  English  for  them,  as 
well  as  I  could,  on  the  spot. 

The  landlady's  daughter  seemed  to  be  much 
amused  by  the  idea  that  a  depilatory  could  take  the 
place  of  literary  and  scientific  accomplishments  ;  she 
wanted  me  to  print  the  piece,  so  that  she  might  send 
a  copy  of  it  to  her  cousin  in  Mizzourah ;  she  didn't 
think  he'd  have  to  do  anything  to  the  outside  of  his 
head  to  get  into  any  of  the  societies  ;  he  had  to  wear 
a  wig  once,  when  he  played  a  part  in  a  tabullo. 

No, — said  I, — I  shouldn't  think  of  printing  that  in 
English.  I'll  tell  you  why.  As  soon  as  you  get  a 
few  thousand  people  together  in  a  town,  there  is 
somebody  that  every  sharp  thing  you  say  is  sure  to 
hit.  What  if  a  thing  was  written  in  Paris  or  in 
Peldn  ? — that  makes  no  difference.  Everybody  in 


THE  AUTOCKAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   159 

those  cities,  or  almost  everybody,  has  his  counterpart 
here,  and  in  all  large  places. — You  never  studied 
averages  as  I  have  had  occasion  to. 

I'll  tell  you  how  I  came  to  know  so  much  about 
averages.  There  was  one  season  when  I  was  lectur- 
ing, commonly,  five  evenings  in  the  week,  through 
most  of  the  lecturing  period.  I  soon  found,  as  most 
speakers  do,  that  it  was  pleasanter  to  work  one  lec- 
ture than  to  keep  several  in  hand. 

Don't  you  get  sick  to  death  of  one  lecture  ? — 

said  the  landlady's  daughter, — who  had  a  new  dress 
on  that  day,  and  was  in  spirits  for  conversation. 

I  was  going  to  talk  about  averages, — I  said, — but 
I  have  no  objection  to  telling  you  about  lectures,  to 
begin  with. 

A  new  lecture  always  has  a  certain  excitement 
connected  with  its  delivery.  One  thinks  well  of  it, 
as  of  most  things  fresh  from  his  mind.  After  a  few 
deliveries  of  it,  one  gets  tired  and  then  disgusted 
with  its  repetition.  Go  on  delivering  it,  and  the  dis- 
gust passes  off,  until,  after  one  has  repeated  it  a 
hundred  or  a  hundred  and  fifty  times,  he  rather 
enjoys  the  hundred  and  first  or  hundred  and  fifty- 
first  time,  before  a  new  audience.  But  this  is  on 
one  condition, — that  he  never  lays  the  lecture  down 
and  lets  it  cool.  If  he  does,  there  comes  on  a  loath- 
ing for  it  which  is  intense,  so  that  the  sight  of  the 
old  battered  manuscript  is  as  bad  as  sea-sickness. 

A  new  lecture  is  just  like  any  other  new  tool.  "We 


160   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

use  it  for  a  while  with  pleasure.  Then  it  blisters  our 
hands,  and  we  hate  to  touch  it.  By-and-by  our 
hands  get  callous,  and  then  we  have  no  longer  any 
sensitiveness  about  it.  But  if  we  give  it  up,  the 
calluses  disappear  ;  and  if  we  meddle  with  it  again, 
we  miss  the  novelty  and  get  the  blisters. — The  story 
is  often  quoted  of  Whitefield,  that  he  said  a  sermon 
was  good  for  nothing  until  it  had  been  preached 
forty  times.  A  lecture  doesn't  begin  to  be  old  until 
it  has  passed  its  hundredth  delivery;  and  some,  I 
thinly  have  doubled,  if  not  quadrupled,  that  number. 
These  old  lectures  are  a  man's  best,  commonly ; 
they  improve  by  age,  also, — like  the  pipes,  fiddles, 
and  poems  I  told  you  of  the  other  day.  One  learns 
to  make  the  most  of  their  strong  points  and  to  carry 
off  their  weak  ones, — to  take  out  the  really  good 
things  which  don't  tell  on  the  audience,  and  put  in 
cheaper  things  that  do.  All  this  degrades  him,  of 
course,  but  it  improves  the  lecture  for  general  deliv- 
ery. A  thoroughly  popular  lecture  ought  to  have 
nothing  in  it  which  five  hundred  people  cannot  all 
take  in  a  flash,  just  as  it  is  uttered. 

No,  indeed, — I  should  be  very  sorry  to  say 

anything  disrespectful  of  audiences.  I  have  been 
kindly  treated  by  a  great  many,  and  may  occasion- 
ally face  one  hereafter.  But  I  tell  you  the  aver- 
age intellect  of  five  hundred  persons,  taken  as 
they  come,  is  not  very  high.  It  may  be  sound  and 
safe,  so  far  as  it  goes,  but  it  is  not  very  rapid  or 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    161 

profound.  A  lecture  ought  to  be  something  which 
all  can  understand,  about  something  which  interests 
everybody.  I  think,  that,  if  any  experienced  lecturer 
gives  you  a  different  account  from  this,  it  will  prob- 
ably be  one  of  those  eloquent  or  forcible  speakers 
who  hold  an  audience  by  the  charm  of  their  manner, 
whatever  they  talk  about, — even  when  they  don't 
talk  very  well. 

But  an  average,  which  was  what  I  meant  to  speak 
about,  is  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  subjects  of 
observation  and  study.  It  is  awful  in  its  uniformity, 
in  its  automatic  necessity  of  action.  Two  commu- 
nities of  ants  or  bees  are  exactly  alike  in  all  their 
actions,  so  far  as  we  can  see.  Two  lyceum  assem- 
blies, of  five  hundred  each,  are  so  nearly  alike,  that 
they  are  absolutely  undistinguishable  in  many  cases 
by  any  definite  mark,  and  there  is  nothing  but  the 
place  and  time  by  which  one  can  tell  the  "  remarka- 
bly intelligent  audience  "  of  a  town  in  New  York  or 
Ohio  from  one  in  any  New  England  town  of  similar 
size.  Of  course,  if  any  principle  of  selection  has 
come  in,  as  in  those  special  associations  of  young 
men  which  are  common  in  cities,  it  deranges  the  uni- 
formity of  the  assemblage.  But  let  there  be  no  such 
interfering  circumstances,  and  one  knows  pretty  well 
even  the  look  the  audience  will  have,  before  he  goes 
in.  Front  seats  :  a  few  old  folks, — shiny-headed, — 
slant  up  best  ear  towards  the  speaker, — drop  off 
asleep  after  a  while,  when  the  air  begins  to  get  a 


162   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

little  narcotic  with  carbonic  acid.  Bright  women's 
faces,  young  and  middle-aged,  a  little  behind  these, 
but  toward  the  front — (pick  out  the  best,  and  lecture 
mainly  to  that.)  Here  and  there  a  countenance, 
sharp  and  scholarlike,  and  a  dozen  pretty  female 
ones  sprinkled  about.  An  indefinite  number  of  pairs 
of  young  people, — happy,  but  not  always  very  at- 
tentive. Boys,  in  the  background,  more  or  less 
quiet.  Dull  faces  here,  there, — in  how  many  places ! 
I  don't  say  dull  people,  but  faces  without  a  ray  of 
sympathy  or  a  movement  of  expression.  They  are 
what  kill  the  lecturer.  These  negative  faces  with 
their  vacuous  eyes  and  stony  lineaments  .pump  and 
suck  the  warm  soul  out  of  him  ; — that  is  the  chief 
reason  why  lecturers  grow  so  pale  before  the  season 
is  over.  They  render  latent  any  amount  of  vital 
caloric ;  they  act  on  our  minds  as  those  cold-blooded 
creatures  I  was  talking  about  act  on  our  hearts. 

Out  of  all  these  inevitable  elements  the  audience 
is  generated, — a  great  compound  vertebrate,  as  much 
like  fifty  others  you  have  seen  as  any  two  mammals 
of  the  same  species  are  like  each  other.  Each  audi- 
ence laughs,  and  each  cries,  in  just  the  same  places 
of  your  lecture ;  that  is,  if  you  make  one  laugh  or 
cry,  you  make  all.  Even  those  little  indescribable 
movements  which  a  lecturer  takes  cognizance  of, 
just  as  a  driver  notices  his  horse's  cocking  his  ears, 
are  sure  to  come  in  exactly  the  same  place  of  your 
lecture  always.  I  declare  to  you,  that,  as  the  monk 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   163 

said  about  the  picture  in  the  convent, — that  he  some- 
times thought  the  living  tenants  were  the  shadows, 
and  the  painted  figures  the  realities, — I  have  some- 
times felt  as  if  I  were  a  wandering  spirit,  and  this 
great  unchanging  multivertebrate  which  I  faced  night 
after  night  was  one  ever-listening  animal,  which 
writhed  along  after  me  wherever  I  fled,  and  coiled  at 
my  feet  every  evening,  turning  up  to  me  the  same 
sleepless  eyes  which  I  thought  I  had  closed  with  my 
last  drowsy  incantation ! 

Oh,  yes !     A  thousand  kindly  and  courteous 

acts, — a  thousand  faces  that  melted  individually  out 
of  my  recollection  as  the  April  snow  melts,  but  only 
to  steal  away  and  find  the  beds  of  flowers  'whose 
roots  are  memory,  but  which  blossom  in  poetry  and 
dreams.  I  am  not  ungrateful,  nor  unconscious  of  all 
the  good  feeling  and  intelligence  everywhere  to  be 
met  with  through  the  vast  parish  to  which  the  lec- 
turer ministers.  But  when  I  set  forth,  leading  a 
string  of  my  mind's  daughters  to  market,  as  the 

country-folk  fetch  in  their  strings  of  horses— Pardon 

me,  that  was  a  coarse  fellow  who  sneered  at  the  sym- 
pathy wasted  on  an  unhappy  lecturer,  as  if,  because 
he  was  decently  paid  for  his  services,  he  had  there- 
fore sold  his  sensibilities. — Family  men  get  dreadfully 
homesick.  In  the  remote  and  bleak  village  the  heart 
returns  to  the  red  blaze  of  the  logs  in  one's  fireplace 
at  home. 

"  There  are  his  young  barbarians  all  at  play," — 


164   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

if  he  owns  any  youthful  savages. — No,  the  world  has 
a  million  roosts  for  a  man,  but  only  one  nest. 

It  is  a  fine  thing  to  be  an  oracle  to  which  an 

appeal  is  always  made  in  all  discussions.  The  men 
of  facts  wait  their  turn  in  grim  silence,  with  that 
slight  tension  about  the  nostrils  which  the  conscious- 
ness of  carrying  a  "  settler "  in  the  form  of  a  fact 
or  a  revolver  gives  the  individual  thus  armed.  When 
a  person  is  really  full  of  information,  and  does  not 
abuse  it  to  crush  conversation,  his  part  is  to  that  of 
the  real  talkers  what  the  instrumental  accompani- 
ment is  in  a  trio  or  quartette  of  vocalists. 

What  do  I  mean  by  the  real  talkers  ? — Why, 

the  people  with  fresh  ideas,  of  course,  and  plenty  of 
good  warm  words  to  dress  them  in.  Facts  always 
yield  the  place  of  honor,  in  conversation,  to  thoughts 
about  facts ;  but  if  a  false  note  is  uttered,  down 
comes  the  finger  on  the  key  and  the  man  of  facts 
asserts  his  true  dignity.  I  have  known  three  of  these 
men  of  facts,  at  least,  who  were  always  formidable, 
— and  one  of  them  was  tyrannical. 

Yes,  a  man  sometimes  makes  a  grand  appear- 
ance on  a  particular  occasion ;  but  these  men  knew 
something  about  almost  everything,  and  never  made 
mistakes. — He?  Veneers  in 'first-rate  style.  The 
mahogany  scales  off  now  and  then  in  spots,  and  then 

you  see  the  cheap  light  stuff. — I  found very  fine 

in  conversational  information,  the  other  day  when 
we  were  in  company.  The  talk  ran  upon  moun- 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   165 

tains.  He  was  wonderfully  well  acquainted  with 
the  leading  facts  about  the  Andes,  the  Apennines,  and 
the  Appalachians;  he  had  nothing  in  particular  to 
say  about  Ararat,  Ben  Nevis,  and  various  other 
mountains  that  were  mentioned.  By  and  by  some 
Revolutionary  anecdote  came  up,  and  he  showed 
singular  familiarity  with  the  lives  of  the  Adamses, 
and  gave  many  details  relating  to  Major  Andre*.  A 
point  of  Natural  History  being  suggested,  he  gave 
an  excellent  account  of  the  air-bladder  of  fishes.  He 
was  very  full  upon  the  subject  of  agriculture,  but 
retired  from  the  conversation  when  horticulture  was 
introduced  in  the  discussion.  So  he  seemed  well 
acquainted  with  the  geology  of  anthracite,  but  did 
not  pretend  to  know  anything  of  other  kinds  of  coal. 
There  was  something  so  odd  about  the  extent  and 
limitations  of  his  knowledge,  that  I  suspected  all  at 
once  what  might  be  the  meaning  of  it,  and  waited 
till  I  got  an  opportunity. — Have  you  seen  the  "  New 
American  Cyclopaedia  ?  "  said  I. — I  have,  he  replied ; 
I  received  an  early  copy. — How  far  does  it  go  ? — He 
turned  red,  and  answered, — To  Araguay. — Oh,  said 
I  to  myself, — not  quite  so  far  as  Ararat ; — that  is  the 
reason  he  knew  nothing  about  it ;  but  he  must  have 
read  all  the  rest  straight  through,  and,  if  he  can 
remember  what  is  in  this  volume  until  he  has  read 
all  those  that  are  to  come,  he  will  know  more  than  I 
ever  thought  he  would. 

Since  I  had  this  experience,  I  hear  that  somebody 


166   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

else  has  related  a  similar  story.  I  didn't  borrow  it, 
for  all  that. — I  made  a  comparison  at  table  some 
time  since,  which  has  often  been  quoted  and  received 
many  compliments.  It  was  that  of  the  mind  of  a 
bigot  to  the  pupil  of  the  eye;  the  more  light  you 
pour  on  it,  the  more  it  contracts.  The  simile  is  a 
very  obvious,  and,  I  suppose  I  may  now  say,  a 
happy  one ;  for  it  has  just  been  shown  me  that  it 
occurs  in  a  Preface  to  certain  Political  Poems  of 
Thomas  Moore's  published  long  before  my  remark 
was  repeated.  When  a  person  of  fair  character  for 
literary  honesty  uses  an  image  such  as  another  has 
employed  before  him,  the  presumption  is,  that  he  has 
struck  upon  it  independently,  or  unconsciously  re- 
called it,  supposing  it  his  own. 

It  is  impossible  to  tell,  in  a  great  many  cases, 
whether  a  comparison  which  suddenly  suggests  itself 
is  a  new  conception  or  a  recollection.  I  told  you 
the  other  day  that  I  never  wrote  a  line  of  verse  that 
seemed  to  me  comparatively  good,  but  it  appeared 
old  at  once,  and  often  as  if  it  had  been  borrowed. 
But  I  confess  I  never  suspected  the  above  compari- 
son of  being  old,  except  from  the  fact  of  its  obvious- 
ness. It  is  proper,  however,  that  I  proceed  by  a 
formal  instrument  to  relinquish  all  claim  to  any  prop- 
erty in  an  idea  given  to  the  world  at  about  the  time 
when  I  had  just  joined  the  class  in  which  Master 
Thomas  Moore  was  then  a  somewhat  advanced 
scholar. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    167 

I,  therefore,  in  full  possession  of  my  native  honesty, 
but  knowing  the  liability  of  all  men  to  be  elected  to 
public  office,  and  for  that  reason  feeling  uncertain 
how  soon  I  may  be  in  danger  of  losing  it,  do  hereby 
renounce  all  claim  to  being  considered  the  first  per- 
son who  gave  utterance  to  a  certain  simile  or  com- 
parison referred  to  in  the  accompanying  documents, 
and  relating  to  the  pupil  of  the  eye  on  the  one  part 
and  the  mind  of  the  bigot  on  the  other.  I  hereby 
relinquish  all  glory  and  profit,  and  especially  all 
claims  to  letters  from  autograph  collectors,  founded 
upon  my  supposed  property  in  the  above  comparison, 
— knowing  well,  that,  according  to  the  laws  of  liter- 
ature, they  who  speak  first  hold  the  fee  of  the  thing 
said.  I  do  also  agree  that  all  Editors  of  Cyclopedias 
and  Biographical  Dictionaries,  all  Publishers  of  Re- 
views and  Papers,  and  all  Critics  writing  therein, 
shall  be  at  liberty  to  retract  or  qualify  any  opinion 
predicated  on  the  supposition  that  I  was  the  sole  and 
undisputed  author  of  the  above  comparison.  But, 
inasmuch  as  I  do  affirm  that  the  comparison  afore- 
said was  uttered  by  me  in  the  firm  belief  that  it  was 
new  and  wholly  my  own,  and  as  I  have  good  reason 
to  think  that  I  had  never  seen  or  heard  it  when  first 
expressed  by  me,  and  as  it  is  well  known  that  differ- 
ent persons  may  independently  utter  the  same  idea, 
— as  is  evinced  by  that  familiar  line  from  Dona- 
tus, — 

"  Pereant  illi  qui  ante  nos  nostra  dixerunt," — 


168        THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

now,  therefore,  I  do  request  by  this  instrument  that 
all  well-disposed  persons  will  abstain  from  asserting 
or  implying  that  I  am  open  to  any  accusation  what- 
soever touching  the  said  comparison,  and,  if  they 
have  so  asserted  or  implied,  that  they  will  have  the 
manliness  forthwith  to  retract  the  same  assertion  or 
insinuation. 

I  think  few  persons  have  a  greater  disgust  for 
plagiarism  than  myself.  If  I  had  even  suspected 
that  the  idea  in  question  was  borrowed,  I  should 
have  disclaimed  originality,  or  mentioned  the  coin- 
cidence, as  I  once  did  in  a  case  where  I  had  happened 
to  hit  on  an  idea  of  Swift's. — But  what  shall  I  do 
about  these  verses  I  was  going  to  read  you  ?  I  am 
afraid  that  half  mankind  would  accuse  me  of  steal- 
ing their  thoughts,  if  I  printed  them.  I  am  convinced 
that  several  of  you,  especially  if  you  are  getting  a 
little  on  in  life,  will  recognize  some  of  these  senti- 
ments as  having  passed  through  your  consciousness 
at  some  time.  I  can't  help  it, — it  is  too  late  now 
The  verses  are  written,  and  you  must  have  them. 
Listen,  then,  and  you  shall  hear 

WHAT  WE  ALL  THINK. 

THAT  age  was  older  once  than  now; 

In  spite  of  locks  untimely  shed, 
Or  silvered  on  the  youthful  brow ; 

That  babes  make  love  and  children  wed. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   169 

That  sunshine  had  a  heavenly  glow, 

Which  faded  with  those  "  good  old  days," 

When  winters  caine  with  deeper  snow, 
And  autumns  with  a  softer  haze. 

That — mother,  sister,  wife,  or  child — 

The  "  best  of  women  "  each  has  known. 
Were  schoolboys  ever  half  so  wild  ? 

How  young  the  grandpapas  have  grown  ! 

That  but  for  this  our  souls  were  free, 
And  but  for  that  our  lives  were  blest; 

That  in  some  season  yet  to  be 

Our  cares  will  leave  us  time  to  rest. 

Whene'er  we  groan  with  ache  or  pain, 

Some  common  ailment  of  the  race, — 
Though  doctors  think  the  matter  plain, — 

That  ours  is  "  a  peculiar  case." 

That  when  like  babes  with  fingers  burned 

We  count  one  bitter  maxim  more, 
Our  lesson  all  the  world  has  learned, 

And  men  are  wiser  than  before. 

That  when  we  sob  o'er  fancied  woes, 

The  angels  hovering  overhead 
Count  every  pitying  drop  that  flows 

And  love  us  for  the  tears  we  shed. 

That  when  we  stand  with  tearless  eye 

And  turn  the  beggar  from  our  door, 
They  still  approve  us  when  we  sigh, 

"Ah,  had  I  but  one  thousand  more  !  " 


170   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

That  weakness  smoothed  the  path  of  sin, 
In  half  the  slips  our  youth  has  known ; 

And  whatsoe'er  its  blame  has  been, 

That  Mercy  flowers  on  faults  outgrown. 

Though  temples  crowd  the  crumbled  brink 
O'erhanging  truth's  eternal  flow, 

Their  tablets  bold  with  what  we  think, 
Their  echoes  dumb  to  what  we  know  ; 

That  one  unquestioned  text  we  read, 
All  doubt  beyond,  all  fear  above, 

Nor  crackling  pile  nor  cursing  creed 
Can  burn  or  blot  it :  GOD  is  LOVE  1 


VII. 

[THIS  particular  record  is  noteworthy  principally 
for  containing  a  paper  by  my  friend,  the  Professor, 
with  a  poem  or  two  annexed  or  intercalated.  I 
would  suggest  to  young  persons  that  they  should 
pass  over  it  for  the  present,  and  read,  instead  of  it, 
that  story  about  the  young  man  who  was  in  love 
with  the  young  lady,  and  in  great  trouble  for  some- 
thing like  nine  pages,  but  happily  married  on  the 
tenth  page  or  thereabouts,  which,  I  take  it  for  granted, 
will  be  contained  in  the  periodical  where  this  is 
found,  unless  it  differ  from  all  other  publications  of 
the  kind.  Perhaps,  if  such  young  people  will  lay 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BKEAKFAST-TABLE.   171 

the  number  aside,  and  take  it  up  ten  years,  or  a  little 
more,  from  the  present  time,  they  may  find  some- 
thing in  it  for  their  advantage.  They  can't  possibly 
understand  it  all  now.] 

My  friend,  the  Professor,  began  talking  with  me 
one  day  in  a  dreary  sort  of  way.  I  couldn't  get  at 
the  difficulty  for  a  good  while,  but  at  last  it  turned 
out  that  somebody  had  been  calling  him  an  old  man. 
— He  didn't  mind  his  students  calling  him  the  old 
man,  he  said.  That  was  a  technical  expression,  and 
he  thought  that  he  remembered  hearing  it  applied  to 
himself  when  he  was  about  twenty-five.  It  may  be 
considered  as  a  familiar  and  sometimes  endearing 
appellation.  An  Irishwoman  calls  her  husband  "  the 
old  man,"  and  he  returns  the  caressing  expression  by 
speaking  of  her  as  "the  old  woman."  But  now, 
said  he,  just  suppose  a  case  like  one  of  these.  A 
young  stranger  is  overheard  talking  of  you  as  a  very 
nice  old  gentleman.  A  friendly  and  genial  critic 
speaks  of  your  green  old  age  as  illustrating  the  truth 
of  some  axiom  you  had  uttered  with  reference  to 
that  period  of  life.  What  I  call  an  old  man  is  a 
person  with  a  smooth,  shining  crown  and  a  fringe  of 
scattered  white  hairs,  seen  in  the  streets  on  sunshiny 
days,  stooping  as  he  walks,  bearing  a  cane,  moving 
*  cautiously  and  slowly ;  telling  old  stories,  smiling  at 
present  follies,  living  in  a  narrow  world  of  dry  habits  ; 
one  that  remains  waking  when  others  have  dropped 
asleep,  and  keeps  a  little  night-lamp-flame  of  life 


172        TH-Jfi  AUTOCRAT    OF   THE   BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

burning  year  after  year,  if  the  lamp  is  not  upset, 
and  there  is  only  a  careful  hand  held  round  it  to  pre- 
vent the  puffs  of  wind  from  blowing  the  flame  out 
That's  what  I  call  an  old  man. 

Now,  said  the  Professor,  you  don't  mean  to  tell  me 
that  I  have  got  to  that  yet  ?  Why,  bless  you,  I  am 
several  years  short  of  the  time  when — [I  knew  what 
was  coming,  and  could  hardly  keep  from  laughing ; 
twenty  years  ago  he  used  to  quote  it  as  one  of  those 
absurd  speeches  men  of  genius  will  make,  and  now 
he  is  going  to  argue  from  it] — several  years  short  of 
the  time  when  Balzac  says  that  men  are — mos1^~ you 
know — dangerous  to — the  hearts  of — in  short,  most 
to  be  dreaded  by  duennas  that  have  charge  of  sus- 
ceptible females. — What  age  is  that?  said  I,  statisti- 
cally.— Fifty-two  years,  answered  the  Professor. — 
Balzac  ought  to  know,  said  I,  if  it  is  true  that  Goe- 
the said  of  him  that  each  of  his  stories  must  have 
been  dug  out  of  a  woman's  heart.  But  fifty-two  is 
a  high  figure. 

Stand  in  the  light  of  the  window,  Professor,  said 
I. — The  Professor  took  up  the  desired  position. — 
You  have  white  hairs,  I  said. — Had  'em  any  time 
these  twenty  years,  said  the  Professor. — And  the 
crow's-foot, — pes  anserinus^  rather. — The  Professor 
smiled,  as  I  wanted  him  to,  and  the  folds  radiated' 
like  the  ridges  of  a  half-opened  fan,  from  the  outer 
corner  of  the  eyes  to  the  temples. — And  the  calipers, 
said  I. — What  are  the  calipers  ?  he  asked,  curiously 


THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.        173 

—Why,  the  parenthesis,  said  I. — Parenthesis  ?  said  the 
Professor ;  what's  that  ? — Why,  look  in  the  glass 
when  you  are  disposed  to  laugh,  and  see  if  your 
mouth  isn't  framed  in  a  couple  of  crescent  lines, — 
BO,  my  boy  (  ). — It's  all  nonsense,  said  the  Professor ; 
just  look  at  my  biceps  ; — and  he  began  pulling  off 
his  coat  to  show  me  his  arm.  Be  careful,  said  I ; 
you  can't  bear  exposure  to  the  air,  at  your  time  of 
life,  as  you  could  once. — I  will  box  with  you,  said  the 
Professor,  row  with  you,  walk  with  you,  ride  with 
you,  swim  with  you,  or  sit  at  table  with  you,  for 
fifty  dollars  a  side. — Pluck  survives  stamina,  I  an- 
swered. 

The  Professor  went  off  a  little  out  of  humor.  A 
few  weeks  afterwards  he  came  in,  looking  very  good- 
natured,  and  brought  me  a  paper,  which  I  have  here, 
and  from  which  I  shall  read  you  some  portions,  if 
you  don't  object.  He  had  been  thinking  the  matter 
over,  he  said, — had  read  Cicero  "  De  Senectute,"  and 
made  up  his  mind  to  meet  old  age  half  way.  These 
were  some  of  his  reflections  that  he  had  written 
down  ;  so  here  you  have 

THE  PROFESSOR'S  PAPER. 

THERE  is  no  doubt  when  old  age  begins.  The 
human  body  is  a  furnace  which  keeps  in  blast  three- 
score years  and  ten,  more  or  less.  It  burns  about 
three  hundred  pounds  of  carbon  a  year,  (besides  other 
fuel,)  when  in  fair  working  order,  according  to  a  great 


174   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

chemist's  estimate.  When  the  fire  slackens,  life  de- 
clines ;  when  it  goes  out,  we  are  dead. 

It  has  been  shown  by  some  noted  French  experi- 
menters, that  the  amount  of  combustion  increases  up 
to  about  the  thirtieth  year,  remains  stationary  to 
about  forty-five,  and  then  diminishes.  This  last  is 
the  point  where  old  age  starts  from.  The  great  fact 
of  physical  life  is  the  perpetual  commerce  with  the 
elements,  and  the  fire  is  the  measure  of  it. 

About  this  time  of  life,  if  food  is  plenty  where  you 
live, — for  that,  you  know,  regulates  matrimony, — 
you  may  be  expecting  to  find  yourself  a  grandfather 
some  fine  morning ;  a  kind  of  domestic  felicity  that 
gives  one  a  cool  shiver  of  delight  to  think  of,  as 
among  the  not  remotely  possible  events. 

I  don't  mind  much  those  slipshod  lines  Dr.  John- 
son wrote  to  Thrale,  telling  her  about  life's  declining 
from  thirty-five ;  the  furnace  is  in  full  blast  for  ten 
years  longer,  as  I  have  said.  The  Romans  came 
very  near  the  mark ;  their  age  of  enlistment  reached 
from  seventeen  to  forty-six  years. 

What  is  the  use  of  fighting  against  the  seasons, 
or  the  tides,  or  the  movements  of  the  planetary  bod- 
ies, or  this  ebb  in  the  wave  of  life  that  flows  through 
us  ?  We  are  old  fellows  from  the  moment  the  fire 
begins  to  go  out.  Let  us  always  behave  like  gentle- 
men when  we  are  introduced  to  new  acquaintance. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    175 

Incipit  Allegoria  Senectutis. 

Old  Age,  this  is  Mr.  Professor  ;  Mr.  Professor,  this 
is  Old  Age. 

Old  Age. — Mr.  Professor,  I  hope  to  see  yon  well. 
I  have  known  you  for  some  time,  though  I  think 
you  did  not  know  me.  Shall  we  walk  down  the 
street  together  ? 

Professor  (drawing  back  a  little). — We  can  talk 
more  quietly,  perhaps,  in  my  study.  Will  you  tell 
me  how  it  is  you  seem  to  be  acquainted  with  every- 
body you  are  introduced  to,  though  he  evidently 
considers  you  an  entire  stranger  ? 

Old  Age. — I  make  it  a  rule  never  to  force  myself 
upon  a  person's  recognition  until  I  have  known  him 
at  least  five  years. 

Professor. — Do  you  mean  to  say  that  you  have 
known  me  so  long  as  that  ? 

Old  Age.  I  do.  I  left  my  card  on  you  longer 
ago  than  that,  but  I  am  afraid  you  never  read  it;  yet 
I  see  you  have  it  with  you. 

Professor. — Where  ? 

Old  Age. — There,  between  your  eyebrows, — three 
straight  lines  running  up  and  down ;  all  the  probate 
courts  know  that  token, — "  Old  Age,  his  mark."  Put 
your  forefinger  on  the  inner  end  of  one  eyebrow,  and 
your  middle  finger  on  the  inner  end  of  the  other 
eyebrow ;  now  separate  the  fingers,  and  you  will 
smooth  out  my  sign-manual;  that's  the  way  you 
used  to  look  before  I  left  my  card  on  you. 


176        THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Professor. — What  message  do  people  generally 
send  back  when  you  first  call  on  them  ? 

Old  Age. — Not  at  home.  Then  I  leave  a  card  and 
go.  Next  year  I  call ;  get  the  same  answer ;  leave 
another  card.  So  for  five  or  six, — sometimes  ten 
years  or  more.  At  last,  if  they  don't  let  me  in,  I 
break  in  through  the  front  door  or  the  windows. 

We  talked  together  in  this  way  some  time.  Then 
Old  Age  said  again, — Come,  let  us  walk  down  the 
street  together, — and  offered  me  a  cane,  an  eyeglass, 
a  tippet,  and  a  pair  of  over-shoes. — No,  much  ob- 
liged to  you,  said  I.  I  don't  want  those  things,  and 
I  had  a  little  rather  talk  with  you  here,  privately,  in 
my  study.  So  I  dressed  myself  up  in  a  jaunty  way 
and  walked  out  alone ; — got  a  fall,  caught  a  cold, 
was  laid  up  with  a  lumbago,  and  had  time  to  think 
over  this  whole  matter. 

Explicit  Allegoria  Senectutis. 

We  have  settled  when  old  age  begins.  Like  all 
Nature's  processes,  it  is  gentle  and  gradual  in  its 
approaches,  strewed  with  illusions,  and  all  its  little 
griefs  soothed  by  natural  sedatives.  But  the  iron 
hand  is  not  less  irresistible  because  it  wears  the 
velvet  glove.  The  button-wood  throws  off  its  bark 
in  large  flakes,  which  one  may  find  lying  at  its  foot, 
pushed  out,  and  at  last  pushed  off,  by  that  tranquil 
movement  from  beneath,  which  is  too  slow  to  be 
seen,  but  too  powerful  to  be  arrested.  One  finds 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    177 

them  always,  but  one  rarely  sees  them  fall.  So  it 
is  our  youth  drops  from  us, — scales  off,  sapless  and 
lifeless,  and  lays  bare  the  tender  and  immature  fresh 
growth  of  old  age.  Looked  at  collectively,  the 
changes  of  old  age  appear  as  a  series  of  personal 
insults  and  indignities,  terminating  at  last  in  death, 
which  Sir  Thomas  Browne  has  called  "  the  very  dis- 
grace and  ignominy  of  our  natures." 

My  lady's  cheek  can  boast  no  more 
The  cranberry  white  and  pink  it  wore ; 
And  where  her  shining  locks  divide, 
The  parting  line  is  all  too  wide 

No,  no, — this  will  never  do.  Talk  about  men,  if 
you  will,  but  spare  the  poor  women. 

We  have  a  brief  description  of  seven  stages  of 
life  by  a  remarkably  good  observer.  It  is  very  pre- 
sumptuous to  attempt  to  add  to  it,  yet  I  have  been 
struck  with  the  fact  that  life  admits  of  a  natural 
analysis  into  no  less  than  fifteen  distinct  periods. 
Taking  the  five  primary  divisions,  infancy,  childhood, 
youth,  manhood,  old  age,  each  of  these  has  its  own 
three  periods  of  immaturity,  complete  development, 
and  decline.  I  recognize  on  old  baby  at  once, — with 
its  "  pipe  and  mug,"  (a  stick  of  candy  and  a  porrin- 
ger,)— so  does  everybody ;  and  an  old  child  shedding 
its  milk-teeth  is  only  a  little  prototype  of  the  old  man 
shedding  his  permanent  ones.  Fifty  or  thereabouts 
is  only  the  childhood,  as  it  were,  of  old  age ;  the 

8* 


178   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

graybeard  youngster  must  be  weaned  from  his  late 
suppers  now.  So  you  will  see  that  you  have  to 
make  fifteen  stages  at  any  rate,  and  that  it  would 
not  be  hard  to  make  twenty-five ;  five  primary,  each 
with  five  secondary  divisions. 

The  infancy  and  childhood  of  commencing  old 
age  have  the  same  ingenuous  simplicity  and  de- 
lightful unconsciousness  about  them  as  the  first 
stage  of  the  earlier  periods  of  life  shows.  The  great 
delusion  of  mankind  is  in  supposing  that  to  be  in- 
dividual and  exceptional  which  is  universal  and  ac- 
cording to  law.  A  person  is  always  startled  when 
he  hears  himself  seriously  called  an  old  man  for  the 
first  time. 

Nature  gets  us  out  of  youth  into  manhood,  as 
sailors  are  hurried  on  board  of  vessels, — in  a  state 
of  intoxication.  We  are  hustled  into  maturity  reel- 
ing with  our  passions  and  imaginations,  and  we 
have  drifted  far  away  from  port  before  we  awake  out 
of  our  illusions.  But  to  carry  us  out  of  maturity 
into  old  age,  without  our  knowing  where  we  are 
going,  she  drugs  us  with  strong  opiates,  and  so  we 
stagger  along  with  wide  open  eyes  that  see  nothing 
until  snow  enough  has  fallen  on  our  heads  to  rouse 
our  comatose  brains  out  of  their  stupid  trances. 

There  is  one  mark  of  age  that  strikes  me  more 
than  any  of  the  physical  ones  ; — I  mean  the  forma- 
tion of  Habits.  An  old  man  who  shrinks  into  him- 
self falls  into  ways  that  become  as  positive  and  as 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   179 

much  beyond  the  reach  of  outside  influences  as  if  they 
were  governed  by  clock-work.  The  animal  functions, 
as  the  physiologists  call  them,  in  distinction  from 
the  organic,  tend,  in  the  process  of  deterioration  to 
which  age  and  neglect  united  gradually  lead  them, 
to  assume  the  periodical  or  rhythmical  type  of  move- 
ment. Every  man's  heart  (this  organ  belongs,  you 
know,  to  the  organic  system)  has  a  regular  mode  of 
action  ;  but  I  know  a  great  many  men  whose  brains, 
and  all  their  voluntary  existence  flowing  from  their 
brains,  have  a  systole  and  diastole  as  regular  as  that 
of  the  heart  itself.  Habit  is  the  approximation  of 
the  animal  system  to  the  organic.  It  is  a  confession 
of  failure  in  the  highest  function  of  being,  which 
involves  a  perpetual  self-determination,  in  full  view 
of  all  existing  circumstances.  But  habit,  you  see, 
is  an  action  in  present  circumstances  from  past  mo- 
tives. It  is  substituting  a  vis  a  tergo  for  the  evolu- 
tion of  living  force. 

When  a  man,  instead  of  burning  up  three  hundred 
pounds  of  carbon  a  year,  has  got  down  to  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty,  it  is  plain  enough  he  must  economize 
force  somewhere.  Now  habit  is  a  labor-saving  in- 
vention which  enables  a  man  to  get  along  with  less 
fuel, — that  is  all ;  for  fuel  is  force,  you  know,  just  as 
much  in  the  page  I  am  writing  for  you  as  in  the  loco- 
motive or  the  legs  that  carry  it  to  you.  Carbon  is  the 
same  thing,  whether  you  call  it  wood,  or  coal,  or  bread 
and  cheese.  A  reverend  gentleman  demurred  to  this 


180   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

statement, — as  if,  because  combustion  is  asserted  to 
be  the  sine  qua  non  of  thought,  therefore  thought  is 
alleged  to  be  a  purely  chemical  process.  Facts  of 
chemistry  are  one  thing,  I  told  him,  and  facts  of  con- 
sciousness another.  It  can  be  proved  to  him,  by  a 
very  simple  analysis  of  some  of  his  spare  elements, 
that  every  Sunday,  when  he  does  his  duty  faithfully, 
he  uses  up  more  phosphorus  out  of  his  brain  and 
nerves  than  on  ordinary  days.  But  then  he  had  his 
choice  whether  to  do  his  duty,  or  to  neglect  it,  and 
save  his  phosphorus  and  other  combustibles. 

It  follows  from  all  this  that  the  formation  of  habits 
ought  naturally  to  be,  as  it  is,  the  special  character- 
istic of  age.  As  for  the  muscular  powers,  they  pass 
their  maximum  long  before  the  time  when  the  true 
decline  of  life  begins,  if  we  may  judge  by  the  expe- 
rience of  the  ring.  A  man  is  "  stale,"  I  think,  in 
their  language,  soon  after  thirty, — often,  no  doubt, 
much  earlier,  as  gentlemen  of  the  pugilistic  profes- 
sion are  exceedingly  apt  to  keep  their  vital  fire  burn- 
ing with  the  blower  up. 

So  far  without  Tully."  But  in  the  mean  time 

I  have  been  reading  the  treatise,  "  De  Senectute."  It 
is  not  long,  but  a  leisurely  performance.  The  old 
gentleman  was  sixty-three  years  of  age  when  he 
addressed  it  to  his  friend  T.  Pomponius  Atticus, 
Eq.,  a  person  of  distinction,  some  two  or  three  years 
older.  We  read  it  when  we  are  schoolboys,  forget 
all  about  it  for  thirty  years,  and  then  take  it  up 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    181 

again  by  a  natural  instinct, — provided  always  that 
we  read  Latin  as  we  drink  water,  without  stopping 
to  taste  it,  as  all  of  us  who  ever  learned  it  at  school 
or  college  ought  to  do. 

Cato  is  the  chief  speaker  in  the  dialogue.  A  good 
deal  of  it  is  what  would  be  called  in  vulgar  phrase 
"  slow."  It  unpacks  and  unfolds  incidental  illustra- 
tions which  a  modern  writer  would  look  at  the  back 
of,  and  toss  each  to  its  pigeon-hole.  I  think  ancient 
classics  and  ancient  people  are  alike  in  the  tendency 
to  this  kind  of  expansion. 

An  old  doctor  came  to  me  once  (this  is  literal  fact) 
with  some  contrivance  or  other  for  people  with 
broken  kneepans.  As  the  patient  would  be  confined 
for  a  good  while,  he  might  find  it  dull  work  to  sit 
with  his  hands  in  his  lap.  Reading,  the  ingenious 
inventor  suggested,  would  be  an  agreeable  mode  of 
passing  the  time.  He  mentioned,  in  his  written  ac- 
count of  his  contrivance,  various  works  that  might 
amuse  the  weary  hour.  I  remember  only  three, — 
Don  Quixote,  Tom  Jones,  and  Watts  on  the  Mind. 

It  is  not  generally  understood  that  Cicero's  essay 
was  delivered  as  a  lyceum  lecture,  (concio  popularis,) 
at  the  Temple  of  Mercury.  The  journals  (papyri) 
of  the  day  ("  Tempora  Quotidiana," — "  Tribunus 
Quirinalis," — "  Praeco  Romanus,"  and  the  rest)  gave 
abstracts  of  it,  one  of  which  I  have  translated  and 
modernized,  as  being  a  substitute  for  the  analysis  I 
intended  to  make. 


182   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

IV.  Kal.  Mart 

The  lecture  at  the  Temple  of  Mercury,  last  even- 
ing, was  well  attended  by  the  elite  of  our  great  city. 
Two  hundred  thousand  sestertia  were  thought  to 
have  been  represented  in  the  house.  The  doorg 
were  besieged  by  a  mob  of  shabby  fellows,  (illotum 
vulgusj)  who  were  at  length  quieted  after  two  or 
three  had  been  somewhat  roughly  handled  (gladio 
jugulati).  The  speaker  was  the  well-known  Mark 
Tully,  Eq.,— the  subject  Old  Age.  Mr.  T.  has  a 
lean  and  scraggy  person,  with  a  very  unpleasant  ex- 
crescence upon  his  nasal  feature,  from  which  his 
nickname  of  chick-pea  (Cicero)  is  said  by  some  to 
be  derived.  As  a  lecturer  is  public  property,  we  may 
remark,  that  his  outer  garment  (toga)  was  of  cheap 
stuff  and  somewhat  worn,  and  that  his  general  style 
and  appearance  of  dress  and  manner  (habitus,  vesti- 
tusque)  were  somewhat  provincial. 

The  lecture  consisted  of  an  imaginary  dialogue 
between  Cato  and  Laelius.  We  found  the  first  por- 
tion rather  heavy,  and  retired  a  few  moments  for  re- 
freshment (pocula  qucedam,  vini). — All  want  to  reach 
old  age,  says  Cato,  and  grumble  when  they  get  it; 
therefore  they  are  donkeys. — The  lecturer  will  allow 
us  to  say  that  he  is  the  donkey ;  we  know  we  shall 
grumble  at  old  age,  but  we  want  to  live  through 
youth  and  manhood,  in  spite  of  the  troubles  we  shall 
groan  over. — There  was  considerable  prosing  as  to 
what  old  age  can  do  and  can't. — True,  but  not  new. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   183 

Certainly,  old  folks  can't  jump, — break  the  necks  of 
their  thigh-bones,  (femorum  cervices,)  if  they  do; 
can't  crack  nuts  with  their  teeth ;  can't  climb  a 
greased  pole  (malum  inunctum  scandere  non  possunt) ; 
but  they  can  tell  old  stories  and  give  you  good  ad- 
vice; if  they  know  what  you  have  made  up  your 
mind  to  do  when  you  ask  them. — All  this  is  well 
enough,  but  won't  set  the  Tiber  on  fire  (Tiberim 
accendere  nequaquam  potest.) 

There  were  some  clever  things  enough,  (dicta  hand 
inepta,)  a  few  of  which  are  worth  reporting. — Old 
people  are  accused  of  being  forgetful ;  but  they  never 
forget  where  they  have  put  their  money. — Nobody  is 
so  old  he  doesn't  think  he  can  live  a  year. — The 
lecturer  quoted  an  ancient  maxim, — Grow  old  early, 
if  you  would  be  old  long, — but  disputed  it. — Author- 
ity, he  thought,  was  the  chief  privilege  of  age. — It  is 
not  great  to  have  money,  but  fine  to  govern  those 
that  have  it. — Old  age  begins  at  forty-six  years, 
according  to  the  common  opinion. — It  is  not  every 
kind  of  old  age  or  of  wine  that  grows  sour  with  time. 
— Some  excellent  remarks  were  made  on  immortal- 
ity, but  mainly  borrowed  from  and  credited  to  Plato. 
— Several  pleasing  anecdotes  were  told. — Old  Milo, 
champion  of  the  heavy  weights  in  his  day,  looked  at 
his  arms  and  whimpered,  "  They  are  dead."  Not  so 
dead  as  you,  you  old  fool, — says  Cato ; — you  never 
were  good  for  anything  but  for  your  shoulders  and 
flanks. — Pisistratus  asked  Solon  what  made  him 
dare  to  be  so  obstinate.  Old  age,  said  Solon. 


184   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

The  lecture  was  on  the  whole  acceptable,  and  a 
credit  to  our  culture  and  civilization. — The  reporter 
goes  on  to  state  that  there  will  be  no  lecture  next 
week,  on  account  of  the  expected  combat  between 
the  bear  and  the  barbarian.  Betting  (sponsio)  two 
to  one  ( duo  ad  unum)  on  the  bear. 

After  all,  the  most  encouraging  things  I  find 

in  the  treatise,  "  De  Senectute,"  are  the  stories  of 
men  who  have  found  new  occupations  when  grow- 
ing old,  or  kept  up  their  common  pursuits  in  the 
extreme  period  of  life.  Cato  learned  Greek  when 
he  was  old,  and  speaks  of  wishing  to  learn  the  fiddle, 
or  some  such  instrument,  (fidibus^)  after  the  example 
of  Socrates.  Solon  learned  something  new,  every 
day,  in  his  old  age,  as  he  gloried  to  proclaim.  Cy- 
rus pointed  out  with  pride  and  pleasure  the  trees  he 
had  planted  with  his  own  hand.  [I  remember  a 
pillar  on  the  Duke  of  Northumberland's  estate  at 
Alnwick,  with  an  inscription  in  similar  words,  if  not 
the  same.  That,  like  other  country  pleasures,  never 
wears  out.  None  is  too  rich,  none  too  poor,  none 
too  young,  none  too  old  to  enjoy  it]  There  is  a  New 
England  story  I  have  heard  more  to  the  point,  how- 
ever, than  any  of  Cicero's.  A  young  farmer  was 
urged  to  set  out  some  apple-trees. — No,  said  he, 
they  are  too  long  growing,  and  I  don't  want  to  plant 
for  other  people.  The  young  farmer's  father  was 
spoken  to  about  it,  but  he,  with  better  reason,  alleged 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   135 

that  apple-trees  were  slow  and  life  was  fleeting. 
At  last  some  one  mentioned  it  to  the  old  grandfather 
of  the  young  farmer.  He  had  nothing  else  to  do, — 
so  he  stuck  in  some  trees.  He  lived  long  enough  to 
drink  barrels  of  cider  made  from  the  apples  that 
grew  on  those  trees. 

As  for  myself,  after  visiting  a  friend  lately, — [Do 
remember  all  the  time  that  this  is  the  Professor's 
paper.] — I  satisfied  myself  that  I  had  better  concede 
the  fact  that — my  contemporaries  are  not  so  young 
as  they  have  been, — and  that, — awkward  as  it  is, — 
science  and  history  agree  in  telling  me  that  I  can 
claim  the  immunities  and  must  own  the  humiliations 
of  the  early  stage  of  senility.  Ah !  but  we  have  all 
gone  down  the  hill  together.  The  dandies  of  my 
time  have  split  their  waistbands  and  taken  to  high- 
low  shoes.  The  beauties  of  my  recollections — where 
are  they  ?  They  have  run  the  gantlet  of  the  years 
as  well  as  I.  First  the  years  pelted  them  with  red 
roses  till  their  cheeks  were  all  on  fire.  By  and  by 
they  began  throwing  white  roses,  and  that  morn- 
ing flush  passed  away.  At  last  one  of  the  years 
threw  a  snow-ball,  and  after  that  no  year  let  the  poor 
girls  pass  without  throwing  snow-balls.  And  then 
came  rougher  missiles, — ice  and  stones ;  and  from 
time  to  time  an  arrow  whistled,  and  down  went  one 
of  the  poor  girls.  So  there  are  but  few  left ;  and  we 
don't  call  those  few  girls,  but 

Ah,  me !  here  am  I  groaning  just  as  the  old  Greek 


186        THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE   BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

sighed  At,  ai!  and  the  old  Roman,  Eheu  !  I  have  no 
doubt  we  should  die  of  shame  and  grief  at  the  in- 
dignities offered  us  by  age,  if  it  were  not  that  we  see 
so  many  others  as  badly  or  worse  off  than  ourselves. 
We  always  compare  ourselves  with  our  contempo- 
raries. 

[I  was  interrupted  in  my  reading  just  here.  Be- 
fore I  began  at  the  next  breakfast,  I  read  them  these 
verses  ; — I  hope  you  will  like  them,  and  get  a  useful 
lesson  from  them.] 

THE  LAST  BLOSSOM. 

Though  young  no  more,  we  still  would  dream 

Of  beauty's  dear  deluding  wiles  ; 
The  leagues  of  life  to  graybeards  seem 

Shorter  than  boyhood's  lingering  miles. 

Who  knows  a  woman's  wild  caprice  ? 

It  played  with  Goethe's  silvered  hair, 
And  many  a  Holy  Father's  "  niece  " 

Has  softly  smoothed  the  papal  chair. 

When  sixty  bids  us  sigh  in  vain 

To  melt  the  heart  of  sweet  sixteen, 
We  think  upon  those  ladies  twain 

Who  loved  so  well  the  tough  old  Dean. 

We  see  the  Patriarch's  wintry  face, 

The  maid  of  Egypt's  dusky  glow, 
And  dream  that  Youth  and  Age  embrace, 

As  April  violets  fill  with  snow. 


THE   AUTOCRAT   OF   THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.        187 

Tranced  in  her  Lord's  Olympian  smile 

His  lotus-loving  Memphian  lies, — 
The  musky  daughter  of  the  Nile 

With  plaited  hair  and  almond  eyes. 

Might  we  but  share  one  wild  caress 

Ere  life's  autumnal  blossoms  fall, 
And  Earth's  brown,  clinging  lips  impress 

The  long  cold  kiss  that  waits  us  all ! 

My  bosom  heaves,  remembering  yet 

The  morning  of  that  blissful  day 
When  Rose,  the  flower  of  spring,  I  met, 

And  gave  my  raptured  soul  away. 

Flung  from  her  eyes  of  purest  blue, 

A  lasso,  with  its  leaping  chain 
Light  as  a  loop  of  larkspurs,  flew 

O'er  sense  and  spirit,  heart  and  brain. 

Thou  com'st  to  cheer  my  waning  age, 

Sweet  vision,  waited  for  so  long  ! 
Dove  that  would  seek  the  poet's  cage 

Lured  by  the  magic  breath  of  song ! 

She  blushes  !     Ah,  reluctant  maid, 

Love's  drapeau  rouge  the  truth  has  told  I 

O'er  girlhood's  yielding  barricade 

Floats  the  great  Leveller's  crimson  fold  1 

Come  to  my  arms  ! — love  heeds  not  years ; 

No  frost  the  bud  of  passion  knows. — 
Ha  !  what  is  this  my  frenzy  hears  ? 

A  voice  behind  me  uttered, — Rose  ! 


188   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BKEAKFAST-TABLE. 

Sweet  was  her  smile, — but  not  for  me  ; 

Alas,  when  woman  looks  too  kind, 
Just  turn  your  foolish  head  and  see, — 

Some  youth  is  walking  close  behind ! 

As  to  giving  up  because  the  almanac  or  the  Fam- 
ily-Bible says  that  it  is  about  time  to  do  it,  I  have 
no  intention  of  doing  any  such  thing.  I  grant  you 
that  I  burn  less  carbon  than  some  years  ago.  I  see 
people  of  my  standing  really  good  for  nothing,  de- 
crepit, effete,  la  levre  inferieure  dejd  pendante,  with 
what  little  life  they  have  left  mainly  concentrated  in 
their  epigastrium.  But  as  the  disease  of  old  age  is 
epidemic,  endemic,  and  sporadic,  and  everybody  that 
lives  long  enough  is  sure  to  catch  it.  I  am  going  to 
say,  for  the  encouragement  of  such  as  need  it,  how  I 
treat  the  malady  in  my  own  case. 

First.  As  I  feel,  that,  when  I  have  anything  to  do, 
there  is  less  time  for  it  than  when  I  was  younger,  I 
find  that  I  give  my  attention  more  thoroughly,  and 
use  my  time  more  economically  than  ever  before ; 
so  that  I  can  learn  anything  twice  as  easily  as  in  my 
earlier  days.  I  am  not,  therefore,  afraid  to  attack  a 
new  study.  I  took  up  a  difficult  language  a  very 
few  years  ago  with  good  success,  and  think  of  math- 
ematics and  metaphysics  by-and-by. 

Secondly.  I  have  opened  my  eyes  to  a  good  many 
neglected  privileges  and  pleasures  within  my  reach, 
and  requiring  only  a  little  courage  to  enjoy  them. 
You  may  well  suppose  it  pleased  me  to  find  that  old 


THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.        Igg 

Cato  was  thinking  of  learning  to  play  the  fiddle, 
when  I  had  deliberately  taken  it  up  in  my  old  age, 
and  satisfied  myself  that  I  could  get  much  comfort, 
if  not  much  music,  out  of  it. 

Thirdly.  I  have  found  that  some  of  those  active 
exercises,  which  are  commonly  thought  to  belong  to 
young  folks  only,  may  be  enjoyed  at  a  much  later 
period. 

A  young  friend  has  lately  written  an  admirable 
article  in  one  of  the  journals,  entitled,  "  Saints  and 
their  Bodies."  Approving  of  his  general  doctrines, 
and  grateful  for  his  records  of  personal  experience,  I 
cannot  refuse  to  add  my  own  experimental  confirm- 
ation of  his  eulogy  of  one  particular  form  of  active 
exercise  and  amusement,  namely,  boating.  For  the 
past  nine  years,  I  have  rowed  about,  during  a  good 
part  of  the  summer,  on  fresh  or  salt  water.  My 
present  fleet  on  the  river  Charles  consists  of  three 
row-boats.  1.  A  small  flat-bottomed  skiff  of  the 
shape  of  a  flat-iron,  kept  mainly  to  lend  to  boys.  2. 
A  fancy  "  dory  "  for  two  pairs  of  sculls,  in  which  I 
sometimes  go  out  with  my  young  folks.  3.  My  own 
particular  water-sulky,  a  "  skeleton  "  or  "  shell "  race- 
boat,  twenty-two  feet  long,  with  huge  outriggers, 
which  boat  I  pull  with  ten-foot  sculls, — alone,  of 
course,  as  it  holds  but  one,  and  tips  him  out,  if  he 
doesn't  mind  what  he  is  about.  In  this  I  glide 
around  the  Back  Bay,  down  the  stream,  up  the 
Charles  to  Cambridge  and  Watertown,  up  the  Mys- 


190   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

tic,  round  the  wharves,  in  the  wake  of  steamboats, 
which  leave  a  swell  after  them  delightful  to  rock 
upon  ;  I  linger  under  the  bridges, — those  "  caterpillar 
bridges,"  as  my  brother  professor  so  happily  called 
them ;  rub  against  the  black  sides  of  old  wood- 
schooners;  cool  down  under  the  overhanging  stern 
of  some  tall  Indiaman ;  stretch  across  to  the  Navy- 
Yard,  where  the  sentinel  warns  me  off  from  the 
Ohio, — just  as  if  I  should  hurt  her  by  lying  in  her 
shadow ;  then  strike  out  into  the  harbor,  where  the 
water  gets  clear  and  the  air  smells  of  the  ocean, — 
till  all  at  once  I  remember,  that,  if  a  west  wind 
blows  up  of  a  sudden,  I  shall  drift  along  past  the 
islands,  out  of  sight  of  the  dear  old  State-house, — 
plate,  tumbler,  knife  and  fork  all  waiting  at  home, 
but  no  chair  drawn  up  at  the  table, — all  the  dear 
people  waiting,  waiting,  waiting,  while  the  boat  is 
sliding,  sliding,  sliding  into  the  great  desert,  where 
there  is  no  tree  and  no  fountain.  As  I  don't  want 
my  wreck  to  be  washed  up  on  one  of  the  beaches  in 
company  with  devil's-aprons,  bladder-weeds,  dead 
horse-shoes,  and  bleached  crab-shells,  I  turn  about 
and  flap  my  long,  narrow  wings  for  home.  When 
the  tide  is  running  out  swiftly,  I  have  a  splendid 
fight  to  get  through  the  bridges,  but  always  make  it 
a  rule  to  beat, — though  I  have  been  jammed  up  into 
pretty  tight  places  at  times,  and  was  caught  once 
between  a  vessel  swinging  round  and  the  pier,  until 
our  bones  (the  boat's,  that  is)  cracked  as  if  we  had 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   191 

been  in  the  jaws  of  Behemoth.  Then  back  to  my 
moorings  at  the  foot  of  the  Common,  off  with  the 
rowing-dress,  dash  under  the  green  translucent  wave, 
return  to  the  garb  of  civilization,  walk  through  my 
Garden,  take  a  look  at  my  elms  on  the  Common, 
and,  reaching  my  habitat,  in  consideration  of  my 
advanced  period  of  life,  indulge  in  the  Elysian  aban- 
donment of  a  huge  recumbent  chair. 

When  I  have  established  a  pair  of  well-pronounced 
feathering-calluses  on  my  thumbs,  when  I  am  in 
training  so  that  I  can  do  my  fifteen  miles  at  a  stretch 
without  coming  to  grief  in  any  way,  when  I  can 
perform  my  mile  in  eight  minutes  or  a  little  less,  then 
I  feel  as  if  I  had  old  Time's  head  in  chancery,  and 
could  give  it  to  him  at  my  leisure. 

I  do  not  deny  the  attraction  of  walking.  I  have 
bored  this  ancient  city  through  and  through  in  my 
daily  travels,  until  I  know  it  as  an  old  inhabitant  of 
a  Cheshire  knows  his  cheese.  Why,  it  was  I  who, 
in  the  course  of  these  rambles,  discovered  that  re- 
markable avenue  called  Myrtle  Street,  stretching  in 
one  long  line  from  east  of  the  Reservoir  to  a  precipi- 
tous and  rudely  paved  cliff  which  looks  down  on  the 
grim  abode  of  Science,  and  beyond  it  to  the  far 
hills ;  a  promenade  so  delicious  in  its  repose,  so 
cheerfully  varied  with  glimpses  down  the  northern 
slope  into  busy  Cambridge  Street  with  its  iron  river 
of  the  horse-railroad,  and  wheeled  barges  gliding 
back  and  forward  over  it, — so  delightfully  closing  at 


192   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

its  western  extremity  in  sunny  courts  and  passages 
where  I  know  peace,  and  beauty,  and  virtue,  and 
serene  old  age  must  be  perpetual  tenants, — so  allur- 
ing to  all  who  desire  to  take  their  daily  stroll,  in  the 
words  of  Dr.  Watts, — 

"Alike  unknowing  and  unknown," — 

that  nothing  but  a  sense  of  duty  would  have  promp- 
ted me  to  reveal  the  secret  of  its  existence.  I 
concede,  therefore,  that  walking  is  an  immeasura- 
bly fine  invention,  of  which  old  age  ought  constantly 
to  avail  itself. 

Saddle-leather  is  in  some  respects  even  preferable 
to  sole-leather.  The  principal  objection  to  it  is  of  a 
financial  character.  But  you  may  be  sure  that  Ba- 
con and  Sydenham  did  not  recommend  it  for  nothing. 
One's  hepar,  or,  in  vulgar  language,  liver, — a  ponder- 
ous organ,  weighing  some  three  or  four  pounds, — 
goes  up  and  down  like  the  dasher  of  a  churn  in  the 
midst  of  the  other  vital  arrangements,  at  every  step 
of  a  trotting  horse.  The  brains  also  are  shaken  up 
like  coppers  in  a  money-box.  Riding  is  good,  for 
those  that  are  born  with  a  silver-mounted  bridle  in  their 
hand,  and  can  ride  as  much  and  as  often  as  they  like, 
without  thinking  all  the  time  they  hear  that  steady 
grinding  sound  as  the  horse's  jaws"  triturate  with 
calm  lateral  movement  the  bank-bills  and  promises 
to  pay  upon  which  it  is  notorious  that  the  profligate 
animal  in  question  feeds  day  and  night. 


THE  AUTOCEAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    193 

Instead,  however,  of  considering  these  kinds  of  ex- 
ercise in  this  empirical  way,  I  will  devote  a  brief 
space  to  an  examination  of  them  in  a  more  scientific 
form. 

The  pleasure  of  exercise  is  due  first  to  a  purely 
physical  impression,  and  secondly  to  a  sense  of  power 
in  action.  The  first  source  of  pleasure  varies  of 
course  with  our  condition  and  the  state  of  the  sur- 
rounding circumstances  ;  the  second  with  the  amount 
and  kind  of  power,  and  the  extent  and  kind  of  action. 
In  all  forms  of  active  exercise vthere  are  three  powers 
simultaneously  in  action, — the  will,  the  muscles,  and 
the  intellect.  Each  of  these  predominates  in  differ- 
ent kinds  of  exercise.  In  walking,  the  will  and  mus- 
cles are  so  accustomed  to  work  together  and  perform 
their  task  with  so  little  expenditure  of  force,  that  the 
intellect  is  left  comparatively  free.  The  mental 
pleasure  in  walking,  as  such,  is  in  the  sense  of  power 
over  all  our  moving  machinery.  But  in  riding,  I 
have  the  additional  pleasure  of  governing  another 
will,  and  my  muscles  extend  to  the  tips  of  the  ani- 
mal's ears  and  to  his  four  hoofs,  instead  of  stopping 
at  my  hands  and  feet.  Now  in  this  extension  of  my 
volition  and  my  physical  frame  into  another  animal, 
my  tyrannical  instincts  and  my  desire  for  heroic 
strength  are  at  once  gratified.  When  the  horse 
ceases  to  have  a  will  of  his  own  and  his  muscles 
require  no  special  attention  on  your  part,  then  you 
may  live  on  horseback  as  Wesley  did,  and  write 


194   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

sermons  or  take  naps,  as  you  like.  But  you  will 
observe,  that,  in  riding  on  horseback,  you  always 
have  a  feeling,  that,  after  all,  it  is  npt  you  that  do 
the  work,  but  the  animal,  and  this  prevents  the  satis- 
faction from  being  complete. 

Now  let  us  look  at  the  conditions  of  rowing.  I 
won't  suppose  you  to  be  disgracing  yourself  in  one 
of  those  miserable  tubs,  tugging  in  which  is  to  row- 
ing the  true  boat  what  riding  a  cow  is  to  bestriding 
an  Arab.  You  know  the  Esquimaux  kayak,  (if  that 
is  the  name  of  it,)  don't  you  ?  Look  at  that  model 
of  one  over  my  door.  Sharp,  rather  ? — On  the  con- 
trary, it  is  a  lubber  to  the  one  you  and  I  must  have ; 
a  Dutch  fish-wife  to  Psyche,  contrasted  with  what  I 
will  tell  you  about. — Our  boat,  then,  is  something 
of  the  shape  of  a  pickerel,  as  you  look  down  upon 
his  back,  he  lying  in  the  sunshine  just  where  the 
sharp  edge  of  the  water  cuts  in  among  the  lily-pads. 
It  is  a  kind  of  a  giant  pod,  as  one  may  say, — tight 
everywhere,  except  in  a  little  place  in  the  middle, 
where  you  sit.  Its  length  is  from  seven  to  ten  yards, 
and  as  it  is  only  from  sixteen  to  thirty  inches  wide 
in  its  widest  part,  you  understand  why  you  want 
those  "  outriggers,"  or  projecting  iron  frames  with 
the  rowlocks  in  which  the  oars  play.  My  rowlocks 
are  five  feet  apart ;  double  the  greatest  width  of  the 
boat. 

Here  you  are,  then,  afloat  with  a  body  a  rod  and 
a  half  long,  with  arms,  or  wings,  as  you  may  choose 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   195 

to  call  them,  stretching  more  than  twenty  feet  from 
tip  to  tip ;  every  volition  of  yours  extending  as  per- 
fectly into  them  as  if  your  spinal  cord  ran  down  the 
centre  strip  of  your  boat,  and  the  nerves  of  your  arms 
tingled  as  far  as  the  broad  blades  of  your  oars, — 
oars  of  spruce,  balanced,  leathered,  and  ringed  under 
your  own  special  direction.  This,  in  sober  earnest, 
is  the  nearest  approach  to  flying  that  man  has  ever 
made  or  perhaps  ever  will  make.  As  the  hawk  sails 
without  flapping  his  pinions,  so  you  drift  with  the 
tide  when  you  will,  in  the  most  luxurious  form  of  lo- 
comotion indulged  to  an  embodied  spirit.  But  if  your 
blood  wants  rousing,  turn  round  that  stake  in  the 
river,  which  you  see  a  mile  from  here ;  and  when  you 
come  in  in  sixteen  minutes,  (if  you  do,  for  we  are 
old  boys,  and  not  champion  scullers,  you  remember,) 
then  say  if  you  begin  to  feel  a  little  warmed  up  or 
not!  You  can  row  easily  and  gently  all  day,  and 
you  can  row  yourself  blind  and  black  in  the  face  in 
ten  minutes,  just  as  you  like.  It  has  been  long  agreed 
that  there  is  no  way  in  which  a  man  can  accomplish 
so  much  labor  with  his  muscles  as  in  rowing.  It  is 
in  the  boat,  then,  that  man  finds  the  largest  extension 
of  his  volitional  and  muscular  existence  ;  and  yet  he 
may  tax  both  of  them  so  slightly,  in  that  most  deli- 
cious of  exercises,  that  he  shall  mentally  write  his 
sermon,  or  his  poem,  or  recall  the  remarks  he  has 
made  in  company  and  put  them  in  form  for  the  pub- 
lic, as  well  as  in  his  easy-chair. 


196   THE  AUTOCKAT  OF  THE  BKEAKFAST-TABLE. 

I  dare  not  publicly  name  the  rare  joysj  the  infinite 
delights,  that  intoxicate  me  on  some  sweet  June 
morning,  when  the  river  and  bay  are  smooth  as  a 
sheet  of  beryl-green  silk,  and  I  run  along  ripping  it 
up  with  my  knife-edged  shell  of  a  boat,  the  rent 
closing  after  me  like  those  wounds  of  angels  which 
Milton  tells  of,  but  the  seam  still  shining  for  many  a 
long  rood  behind  me.  To  lie  still  over  the  Flats, 
where  the  waters  are  shallow,  and  see  the  crabs 
crawling  and  the  sculpins  gliding  busily  and  silently 
beneath  the  boat, — to  rustle  in  through  the  long 
harsh  grass  that  leads  up  some  tranquil  creek, — to 
take  shelter  from  the  sunbeams  under  one  of  the 
thousand-footed  bridges,  and  look  down  its  inter- 
minable colonnades,  crusted  with  green  and  oozy 
growths,  studded  with  minute  barnacles,  and  belted 
with  rings  of  dark  muscles,  while  overhead  streams 
and  thunders  that  other  river  whose  every  wave  is  a 
human  soul  flowing  to  eternity  as  the  river  below 
flows  to  the  ocean, — lying  there  moored  unseen,  in 
loneliness  so  profound  that  the  columns  of  Tadmor 
in  the  Desert  could  not  seem  more  remote  from  life, 
— the  cool  breeze  on  one's  forehead,  the  stream  whis- 
pering against  the  half-sunken  pillars, — why  should 
I  tell  of  these  things,  that  I  should  live  to  see  my  be- 
loved haunts  invaded  and  the  waves  blackened  with 
boats  as  with  a  swarm  of  water-beetles  ?  What  a 
city  of  idiots  we  must  be  not  to  have  covered  this 
glorious  bay  with  gondolas  and  wherries,  as  we 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   197 

have  just  learned  to   cover  the  ice  in  winter  with 
skaters ! 

I  am  satisfied  that  such  a  set  of  black-coated,  stiff- 
jointed,  soft-muscled,  paste-complexioned  youth  as 
we  can  boast  in  our  Atlantic  cities  never  before 
sprang  from  loins  of  Anglo-Saxon  lineage.  Of  the 
females  that  are  the  mates  of  these  males  I  do  not 
here  speak.  I  preached  my  sermon  from  the  lay- 
pulpit  on  this  matter  a  good  while  ago.  Of  course, 
if  you  heard  it,  you  know  my  belief  is  that  the  total 
climatic  influences  here  are  getting  up  a  number  of 
new  patterns  of  humanity,  some  of  which  are  not  an 
improvement  on  the  old  model.  Clipper-built,  sharp 
in  the  bows,  long  in  the  spars,  slender  to  look  at, 
and  fast  to  go,  the  ship,  which  is  the  great  organ  of 
our  national  life  of  relation,  is  but  a  reproduction  of 
the  typical  form  which  the  elements  impress  upon  its 
builder.  All  this  we  cannot  help ;  but  we  can  make 
the  best  of  these  influences,  such  as  they  are.  We 
have  a  few  good  boatmen, — no  good  horsemen 
that  I  hear  of, — I  cannot  speak  for  cricketing, — - 
but  as  for  any  great  athletic  feat  performed  by 
a  gentleman  in  these  latitudes,  society  would  drop  a 
man  who  should  run  round  the  Common  in  five 
minutes.  Some  of  our  amateur  fencers,  single-stick 
players,  and  boxers,  we  have  no  reason  to  be 
ashamed  of.  Boxing  is  rough  play,  but  not  too 
rough  for  a  hearty  young  fellow.  Anything  is  better 
than  this  white-blooded  degeneration  to  which  we 
all  tend. 


198   THE  AUTOCKAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

I  dropped  into  a  gentlemen's  sparring  exhibition 
only  last  evening.  It  did  my  heart  good  to  see  that 
there  were  a  few  young  and  youngish  youths  left  who 
could  take  care  of  their  own  heads  in  case  of  emer- 
gency. It  is  a  fine  sight,  that  of  a  gentleman  resolv- 
ing himself  into  the  primitive  constituents  of  his  hu- 
manity. Here  is  a  delicate  young  man  now,  with 
an  intellectual  countenance,  a  slight  figure,  a  sub- 
pallid  complexion,  a  most  unassuming  deportment, 
a  mild  adolescent  in  fact,  that  any  Hiram  or  Jon- 
athan from  between  the  ploughtails  would  of  course 
expect  to  handle  with  perfect  ease.  Oh,  he  is  taking 
off  his  gold-bowed  spectacles !  Ah,  he  is  divesting 
himself  of  his  cravat!  Why,  he  is  stripping  off  his 
coat !  Well,  here  he  is,  sure  enough,  in  a  tight  silk 
shirt,  and  with  two  things  that  look  like  batter  pud- 
dings in  the  place  of  his  fists.  Now  see  that  other 
fellow  with  another  pair  of  batter  puddings, — the  big 
one  with  the  broad  shoulders  ;  he  will  certainly  knock 
the  little  man's  head  off,  if  he  strikes  him.  Feinting, 
dodging,  stopping,  hitting,  countering, — little  man's 
head  not  off  yet.  You  might  as  well  try  to  jump 
upon  your  own  shadow  as  to  hit  the  little  man's  in- 
tellectual features.  He  needn't  have  taken  off  the 
gold-bowed,  spectacles  at  all.  Quick,  cautious, 
shifty,  nimble,  cool,  he  catches  all  the  fierce  lunges 
or  gets  out  of  their  reach,  till  his  turn  comes,  and 
then,  whack  goes  one  of  the  batter  puddings  against 
the  big  one's  ribs,  and  bang  goes  the  other  into  the 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   199 

big  one's  face,  and,  staggering,  shuffling,  slipping, 
tripping,  collapsing,  sprawling,  down  goes  the  big 
one  in  a  miscellaneous  bundle. — If  my  young  friend, 
whose  excellent  article  I  have  referred  to,  could  only 
introduce  the  manly  art  of  self-defence  among  the 
clergy,  I  am  satisfied  that  we  should  have  better 
sermons  and  an  infinitely  less  quarrelsome  church- 
militant.  A  bout  with  the  gloves  would  let  off  the 
ill-nature,  and  cure  the  indigestion,  which,  united, 
have  embroiled  their  subject  in  a  bitter  controversy. 
We  should  then  often  hear  that  a  point  of  difference 
between  an  infallible  and  a  heretic,  instead  of  being 
vehemently  discussed  in  a  series  of  newspaper  ar- 
ticles, had  been  settled  by  a  friendly  contest  in  sev- 
eral rounds,  at  the  close  of  which  the  parties  shook 
hands  and  appeared  cordially  reconciled. 

But  boxing  you  and  I  are  too  old  for,  I  am  afraid. 
I  was  for  a  moment  tempted,  by  the  contagion  of 
muscular  electricity  last  evening,  to  try  the  gloves 
with  the  Benicia  Boy,  who  looked  in  as  a  friend  to 
the  noble  art ;  but  remembering  that  he  had  twice 
my  weight  and  half  my  age,  besides  the  advantage 
of  his  training,  I  sat  still  and  said  nothing. 

There  is  one  other  delicate  point  I  wish  to  speak 
of  with  reference  to  old  age.  I  refer  to  the  use  of 
dioptric  media  which  correct  the  diminished  refract- 
ing power  of  the  humors  of  the  eye, — in  other  words, 
spectacles.  I  don't  use  them.  All  I  ask  is  a  large, 
fair  type,  a  strong  daylight  or  gas-light,  and  one  yard 


200   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

of  focal  distance,  and  my  eyes  are  as  good  as  ever. 
But  if  your  eyes  fail,  I  can  tell  you  something  en- 
couraging. There  is  now  living  in  New  York  State 
an  old  gentleman  who,  perceiving  his  sight  to  fail, 
immediately  took  to  exercising  it  on  the  finest  print, 
and  in  this  way  fairly  bullied  Nature  out  of  her 
foolish  habit  of  taking  liberties  at  five-and-forty,  or 
thereabout.  And  now  this  old  gentleman  performs 
the  most  extraordinary  feats  with  his  pen,  showing 
that  his  eyes  must  be  a  pair  of  microscopes.  I 
should  be  afraid  to  say  to  you  how  much  he  writes 
in  the  compass  of  a  half-dime, — whether  the  Psalms 
or  the  Gospels,  or  the  Psalms  and  the  Gospels,  I 
won't  be  positive. 

But  now  let  me  tell  you  this.  If  the  time  comes 
when  you  must  lay  down  the  fiddle  and  the  bow, 
because  your  fingers  are  too  stiff,  and  drop  the  ten- 
foot  sculls,  because  your  arms  are  too  weak,  and, 
after  dallying  awhile  with  eye-glasses,  come  at  last 
to  the  undisguised  reality  of  spectacles, — if  the  time 
comes  when  that  fire  of  life  we  spoke  of  has  burned 
so  low  that  where  its  flames  reverberated  there  is 
only  the  sombre  stain  of  regret,  and  where  its  coals 
glowed,  only  the  white  ashes  that  cover  the  embers 
of  memory, — don't  let  your  heart  grow  cold,  and  you 
may  carry  cheerfulness  and  love  with  you  into  the 
teens  of  your  second  century,  if  you  can  last  so  long. 
As  our  friend,  the  Poet,  once  said,  in  some  of  those 
old-fashioned  heroics  of  his  which  he  keeps  for  his 
private  reading, — 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BEE AKFAST-T ABLE.   201 

Call  him  not  old,  whose  visionary  brain 

Holds  o'er  the  past  its  undivided  reign. 

For  him  in  vain  the  envious  seasons  roll 

Who  bears  eternal  summer  in  his  soul. 

If  yet  the  minstrel's  song,  the  poet's  lay, 

Spring  with  her  birds,  or  children  with  their  play, 

Or  maiden's  smile,  or  heavenly  dream  of  art 

Stir  the  few  life-drops  creeping  round  his  heart, — 

Turn  to  the  record  where  his  years  are  told, — 

Count  his  gray  hairs, — they  cannot  make  him  old  ! 

End  of  the  Professor's  paper. 

[The  above  essay  was  not  read  at  one  time,  but 
in  several  instalments,  and  accompanied  by  various 
comments  from  different  persons  at  the  table.  The 
company  were  in  the  main  attentive,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  little  somnolence  on  the  part  of  the  old 
gentleman  opposite  at  times,  and  a  few  sly,  mali- 
cious questions  about  the  "  old  boys  "  on  the  part  of 
that  forward  young  fellow  who  has  figured  occasion- 
ally, not  always  to  his  advantage,  in  these  reports. 

On  Sunday  mornings,  in  obedience  to  a  feeling  I 
am  not  ashamed  of,  I  have  always  tried  to  give  a 
more  appropriate  character  to  our  conversation.  I 
have  never  read  them  my  sermon  yet,  and  I  don't 
know  that  I  shall,  as  some  of  them  might  take  my 
convictions  as  a  personal  indignity  to  themselves. 
But  having  read  our  company  so  much  of  the  Pro- 
fessor's talk  about  age  and  other  subjects  connected 
with  physical  life,  I  took  the  next  Sunday  morning 
to  repeat  to  them  the  following  poem  of  his,  which 

9* 


202   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLF. 

1  have  had  by  me  some  time.  He  calls  it — I  sup- 
pose, for  his  professional  friends — THE  ANATOMIST'S 
HYMN  ;  but  I  shall  name  it — ] 

THE  LIVING  TEMPLE. 

Not  in  the  world  of  light  alone, 

Where  God  has  built  his  blazing  throne, 

Nor  yet  alone  in  earth  below, 

With  belted  seas  that  come  and  go, 

And  endless  isles  of  sunlit  green, 

Is  all  thy  Maker's  glory  seen  : 

Look  in  upon  thy  wondrous  frame, — 

Eternal  wisdom  still  the  same  I 

The  smooth,  soft  air  with  pulse-like  waves 
Flows  murmuring  through  its  hidden  caves, 
Whose  streams  of  brightening  purple  rush 
Fired  with  a  new  and  livelier  blush, 
While  all  their  burden  of  decay 
The  ebbing  current  steals  away, 
And  red  with  Nature's  flame  they  start 
From  the  warm  fountains  of  the  heart 

No  rest  that  throbbing  slave  may  ask, 
Forever  quivering  o'er  his  task, 
While  far  and  wide  a  crimson  jet 
Leaps  forth  to  fill  the  woven  net 
Which  in  unnumbered  crossing  tidea 
The  flood  of  burning  life  divides, 
Then  kindling  each  decaying  part 
Creeps  back  to  find  the  throbbing  heart. 

But  warmed  with  that  unchanging  flame 
Behold  the  outward  moving  frame, 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   203 

Its  living  marbles  jointed  strong 
"With  glistening  band  and  silvery  thong, 
And  linked  to  reason's  guiding  reins 
By  myriad  rings  in  trembling  chains, 
Each  graven  with  the  threaded  zone 
Which  claims  it  as  the  master's  own. 

See  how  yon  beam  of  seeming  white 
Is  braided  out  of  seven-hued  light, 
Yet  in  those  lucid  globes  no  ray 
By  any  chance  shall  break  astray. 
Hark  how  the  rolling  surge  of  sound, 
Arches  and  spirals  circling  round, 
Wakes  the  hushed  spirit  through  thine  ear 
With  music  it  is  heaven  to  hear. 

Then  mark  the  cloven  sphere  that  holds 
All  thought  in  its  mysterious  folds, 
That  feels  sensation's  faintest  thrill 
And  flashes  forth  the  sovereign  will ; 
Think  on  the  stormy  world  that  dwells 
Locked  in  its  dim  and  clustering  cells ! 
The  lightning  gleams  of  power  it  sheds 
Along  its  hollow  glassy  threads  ! 

O  Father  !  grant  thy  love  divine 
To  make  these  mystic  temples  thine  ! 
When  wasting  age  and  wearying  strife 
Have  sapped  the  leaning  walls  of  life, 
When  darkness  gathers  over  all, 
And  the  last  tottering  pillars  fall, 
Take  the  poor  dust  thy  mercy  warms 
And  mould  it  into  heavenly  forms  I 


204   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 


VIII. 

[SPRING  has  come.  You  will  find  some  verses  to 
that  effect  at  the  end  of  these  notes.  If  you  are  an 
impatient  reader,  skip  to  them  at  once.  In  reading 
aloud,  omit,  if  you  please,  the  sixth  and  seventh 
verses.  These  are  parenthetical  and  digressive,  and, 
unless  your  audience  is  of  superior  intelligence,  will 
confuse  them.  Many  people  can  ride  on  horseback 
who  find  it  hard  to  get  on  and  to  get  off  without 
assistance.  One  has  to  dismount  from  an  idea,  and 
get  into  the  saddle  again,  at  every  parenthesis.] 

The  old  gentleman  who  sits  opposite,  find- 
ing that  spring  had  fairly  come,  mounted  a  white 
hat  one  day,  and  walked  into  the  street.  It  seems 
to  have  been  a  premature  or  otherwise  exceptionable 
exhibition,  not  unlike  that  commemorated  by  the 
late  Mr.  Bayly.  When  the  old  gentleman  came 
home,  he  looked  very  red  in  the  face,  and  complained 
that  he  had  been  "  made  sport  of."  By  sympathiz- 
ing questions,  I  learned  from  him  that  a  boy  had 
called  him  "  old  daddy,"  and  asked  him  when  he 
had  his  hat  whitewashed. 

This  incident  led  me  to  make  some  observations 
at  table  the  next  morning,  which  I  here  repeat  for 
the  benefit  of  the  readers  of  this  record. 

The  hat  is  the  vulnerable  point  of  the  arti- 


THE    PORT-CHUCK, 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   205 

ficial  integument.  I  learned  this  in  early  boyhood. 
I  was  once  equipped  in  a  hat  of  Leghorn  straw, 
having  a  brim  of  much  wider  dimensions  than  were 
usual  at  that  time,  and  sent  to  school  in  that  portion 
of  my  native  town  which  lies  nearest  to  this  me- 
tropolis. On  my  way  I  was  met  by  a  "  Port-chuck," 
as  we  used  to  call  the  young  gentlemen  of  that 
locality,  and  the  following  dialogue  ensued. 

The  Port-chuck.  Hullo,  You-sir,  joo  know  thj 
wuz  gon-to  be  a  race  to-morrah  ? 

Myself.  No.  Who's  g5n-to  run,  *n'  wherVt  gon- 
to  be? 

The  Port-chuck.  Squire  Mico  'n'  Doctor  Wil- 
liams, round  the  brim  o'  your  hat. 

These  two  much-respected  gentlemen  being  the 
oldest  inhabitants  at  that  time,  and  the  alleged  race- 
course being  out  of  the  question,  the  Port-chuck  also 
winking  and  thrusting  his  tongue  into  his  cheek,  I 
perceived  that  I  had  been  trifled  with,  and  the  effect 
has  been  to  make  me  sensitive  and  observant  re- 
specting this  article  of  dress  ever  ^ince.  Here  is  an 
axiom  or  two  relating  to  it. 

A  hat  which  has  been  popped,  or  exploded  by 
being  sat  down  upon,  is  never  itself  again  after- 
wards. 

It  is  a  favorite  illusion  of  sanguine  natures  to  be- 
lieve the  contrary. 

Shabby  gentility  has  nothing  so  characteristic  as 
its  hat.  There  is  always  an  unnatural  calmness 


206   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST- TABLE. 

about  its  nap,  and  an  unwholesome  gloss,  suggestive 
of  a  wet  brush. 

The  last  effort  of  decayed  fortune  is  expended  in 
smoothing  its  dilapidated  castor.  The  hat  is  the 
ultimum  moriens  of  "  respectability." 

The  old  gentleman  took  ^all  these  remarks 

and  maxims  very  pleasantly,  saying,  however,  that 
he  had  forgotten  most  of  his  French  except  the  word 
for  potatoes, — pummies  de  tare. —  Ultimum  moriens, 
I  told  him,  is  old  Italian,  and  signifies'  last  thing"  to 
die.  With  this  explanation  he  was  well  contented, 
and  looked  quite  calm  when  I  saw  him  afterwards 
in  the  entry  with  a  black  hat  on  his  head  and  the 
white  one  in  his  hand. 

1  think  myself  fortunate  in  having  the  Poet 

and  the  Professor  for  my  intimates.  We  are  so 
much  together,  that  we  no  doubt  think  and  talk  a 
good  deal  alike  ;  yet  our  points  of  view  are  in  many 
respects  individual  and  peculiar.  You  know  me 
well  enough  by  1Jiis  time.  I  have  not  talked  with 
you  so  long  for  nothing  and  therefore  I  don't  think 
it  necessary  to  draw  my  own  portrait.  But  let  me 
say  a  word  or  two  about  my  friends. 

The  Professor  considers  himself,  and  I  consider 
him,  a  very  useful  and  worthy  kind  of  drudge.  I 
think  he  has  a  pride  in  his  small  technicalities.  I 
know  that  he  has  a  great  idea  of  fidelity;  and 
though  I  suspect  he  .laughs  a  little  inwardly  at  times 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   207 

at  the  grand  airs  "  Science  "  puts  on,  as  she  stands 
marking  time,  but  not  getting  on,  while  the  trumpets 
are  blowing  and  the  big  drums  beating, — yet  I  am 
sure  he  has  a  liking  for  his  specialty,  and  a  respect 
for  its  cultivators. 

But  I'll  tell  you  what  the  Professor  said  to  the 
Poet  the  other  day. — My  boy,  said  he,  I  can  work 
a  great  deal  cheaper  than  you,  because  I  keep  all  my 
goods  in  the  lower  story.  You  have  to  hoist  yours 
into  the  upper  chambers  of  the  brain,  and  let  them 
down  again  to  your  customers.  I  take  mine  in  at 
the  level  of  the  ground,  and  send  them  off  from  my 
doorstep  almost  without  lifting.  I  tell  you,  the 
higher  a  man  has  to  carry  the  raw  material  of 
thought  before  he  works  it  up,  the  more  it  costs  him 
in  blood,  nerve,  and  muscle.  Coleridge  knew  all 
this  very  well  when  he  advised  every  literary  man 
to  have  a  profession. 

Sometimes  I  like  to  talk  with  one  of  them, 

and  sometimes  with  the  other.  After  a  while  I  get 
tired  of  both.  When  a  fit  of  intellectual  disgust 
comes  over  me,  I  will  tell  you  what  I  have  found 
admirable  as  a  diversion,  in  addition  to  boating  and 
other  amusements  which  I  have  spoken  of, — that  is, 
working  at  my  carpenter's-bench.  Some  mechanical 
employment  is  the  greatest  possible  relief,  after  the 
purely  intellectual  faculties  begin  to  tire.  When  I 
was  quarantined  once  at  Marseilles,  I  got  to  work 
immediately  at  carving  a  wooden  wonder  of  loose 


208   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BKEAKFAST-TABLE. 

rings  on  a  stick,  and  got  so  interested  in  it,  that, 
when  we  were  set  loose,  I  "  regained  my  freedom 
with  a  sigh,"  because  my  toy  was  unfinished. 

There  are  long  seasons  when  I  talk  only  with  the 
Professor,  and  others  when  I  give  myself  wholly  up 
to  the  Poet.  Now  that  my  winter's  work  is  over, 
and  spring  is  with  us,  I  feel  naturally  drawn  to  the 
Poet's  company.  I  don't  know  anybody  more  alive 
to  life  than  he  is.  The  passion  of  poetry  seizes  on 
him  every  spring,  he  says, — yet  oftentimes  he  com- 
plains, that,  when  he  feels  most,  he  can  sing  least. 

Then  a  fit  of  despondency  comes  over  him. — I 
feel  ashamed,  sometimes, — said  he,  the  other  day, — 
to  think  how  far  my  worst  songs  fall  below  my  best. 
It  sometimes  seems  to  me,  as  I  know  it  does  to 
others  who  have  told  me  so,  that  they  ought  to  be 
all  best, — if  not  in  actual  execution,  at  least  in  plan 
and  motive.  I  am  grateful — he  continued — for  all 
such  criticisms.  A  man  is  always  pleased  to  have 
his  most  serious  efforts  praised,  and  the  highest 
aspect  of  his  nature  get  the  most  sunshine. 

Yet  I  am  sure,  that,  in  the  nature  of  things,  many 
minds  must  change  their  key  now  and  then,  on 
penalty  of  getting  out  of  tune  or  losing  their  voices. 
You  know,  I  suppose, — he  said, — what  is  meant  by 
complementary  colors  ?  You  know  the  effect,  too, 
which  the  prolonged  impression  of  any  one  color  has 
on  the  retina.  If  you  close  your  eyes  after  looking 
steadily  at  a  red  object,  you  see  a  green  image. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    209 

It  is  so  with  many  minds, — I  will  not  say  with  all. 
After  looking  at  one  aspect  of  external  nature,  or  of 
any  form  of  beauty  or  truth,  when  they  turn  away, 
the  complementary  aspect  of  the  same  object  stamps 
itself  irresistibly  and  automatically  upon  the  mind. 
Shall  they  give  expression  to  this  secondary  mental 
state,  or  not  ? 

When  I  contemplate — said  my  friend,  the  Poet — 
the  infinite  largeness  of  comprehension  belonging  to 
the  Central  Intelligence,  how  remote  the  creative 
conception  is  from  all  scholastic  and  ethical  formula, 
I  am  led  to  think  that  a  healthy  mind  ought  to 
change  its  mood  from  time  to  time,  and  come  down 
from  its  noblest  condition, — never,  of  course,  to  de- 
grade itself  by  dwelling  upon  what  is  itself  debasing, 
but  to  let  its  lower  faculties  have  a  chance  to  air  and 
exercise  themselves.  After  the  first  and  second  floor 
have  been  out  in  the  bright  street  dressed  in  all  their 
splendors,  shall  not  our  humble  friends  in  the  base- 
ment have  their  holiday,  and  the  cotton  velvet  and 
the  thin-skinned  jewelry — simple  adornments,  but 
befitting  the  station  of  those  who  wear  them — show 
themselves  to  the  crowd,  who  think  them  beautiful, 
as  they  ought  to,  though  the  people  up  stairs  know 
that  they  are  cheap  and  perishable  ? 

1  don't  know  that  I  may  not  bring  the  Poet 

here,  some  day  or  other,  and  let  him  speak  for  him- 
self. Still  I  think  I  can  tell  you  what  he  says  quite 
as  well  as  he  could  do  it. — Oh, — he  said  to  me,  one 


210        THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

day, — I  am  but  a  hand-organ  man, — say  rather,  a 
hand-organ.  Life  turns  the  winch,  and  fancy  or 
accident  pulls  out  the  stops.  I  come  under  your 
windows,  some  fine  spring  morning,  and  play  you 
one  of  my  adagio  movements,  and  some  of  you  say, 
— This  is  good, — play  us  so  always.  But,  dear 
friends,  if  I  did  not  change  the  stop  sometimes,  the 
machine  would  wear  out  in  one  part  and  rust  in 
another.  How  easily  this  or  that  tune  flows ! — you 
say, — there  must  be  no  end  of  just  such  melodies  in 
him. — I  will  open  the  poor  machine  for  you  one  mo- 
ment, and  you  shall  look. — Ah  !  Every  note  marks 
where  a  spur  of  steel  has  been  driven  in.  It  is  easy 
to  grind  out  the  song,  but  to  plant  these  bristling 
points  which  make  it  was  the  painful  task  of  time. 

I  don't  like  to  say  it, — he  continued, — but  poets 
commonly  have  no  larger  stock  of  tunes  than  hand- 
organs  ;  and  when  you  hear  them  piping  up  under 
your  window,  you  know  pretty  well  what  to  expect. 
The  more  stops,  the  better.  Do  let  them  all  be  pulled 
out  in  their  turn ! 

So  spoke  my  friend,  the  Poet,  and  read  me  one  of 
his  stateliest  songs,  and  after  it  a  gay  chanson,  and 
then  a  string  of  epigrams.  All  true, — he  said, — all 
flowers  of  his  soul ;  only  one  with  the  corolla  spread, 
and  another  with  its  disk  half  opened,  and  the  third 
with  the  heart-leaves  covered  up  and  only  a  petal  or 
two  showing  its  tip  through  the  calyx.  The  water- 
lily  is  the  type  of  the  poet's  soul, — he  told  me. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   211 

What  do  you  think,  Sir, — said  the  divinity- 
student, — opens  the  souls  of  poets  most  fully  ? 

Why,  there  must  be  the  internal  force  and  the  ex- 
ternal stimulus.  Neither  is  enough  by  itself.  A 
rose  will  not  flower  in  the  dark,  and  a  fern  will  not 
flower  anywhere. 

What  do  I  think  is  the  true  sunshine  that  opens 
the  poet's  corolla? — I  don't  like  to  say.  They  spoil 
a  good  many,  I  am  afraid ;  or  at  least  they  shine  on 
a  good  many  that  never  come  to  anything. 

Who  are  they  ? — said  the  schoolmistress. 

Women.  Their  love  first  inspires  the  poet,  and 
their  praise  is  his  best  reward. 

The  schoolmistress  reddened  a  little,  but  looked 
pleased. — Did  I  really  think  so  ? — I  do  think  so  ;  I 
never  feel  safe  until  I  have  pleased  them ;  I  don't 
think  they  are  the  first  to  see  one's  defects,  but  they 
are  the  first  to  catch  the  color  and  fragrance  of  a 
true  poem.  Fit  the  same  intellect  to  a  man  and  it 
is  a  bow-string, — to  a  woman  and  it  is  a  harp-string. 
She  is  vibratile  and  resonant  all  over,  so  she  stirs 
with  slighter  musical  tremblings  of  the  air  about  her. 

Ah,  me ! — said  my  friend,  the  Poet,  to  me,  the 

other  day, — what  color  would  it  not  have  given  to 
my  thoughts,  and  what  thrice-washed  whiteness  to 
my  words,  had  I  been  fed  on  women's  praises !  I 
should  have  grown  like  Marvell's  fawn, — 

"  Lilies  without ;  roses  within  !  " 


212   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

But  then, — he  added, — we  all  think,  if  so  arid  so,  we 
should  have  been  this  or  that,  as  you  were  saying, 
the  other  day,  in  those  rhymes  of  yours. 

1  don't  think  there  are  many  poets  in  the  sense 

of  creators  ;  but  of  those  sensitive  natures  which 
reflect  themselves  naturally  in  soft  and  melodious 
words,  pleading  for  sympathy  with  their  joys  and 
sorrows,  every  literature  is  full.  Nature  carves  with 
her  own  hands  the  brain  which  holds  the  creative 
imagination,  but  she  casts  the  over-sensitive  creatures 
in  scores  from  the  same  mould. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  poets,  just  as  there  are  two 
kinds  of  blondes*  [Movement  of  curiosity  among 
our  ladies  at  table. — Please  to  tell  us  about  those 
blondes,  said  the  schoolmistress.]  Why,  there  are 
blondes  who  are  such  simply  by  deficiency  of  color- 
ing matter, — negative  or  washed  blondes,  arrested  by 
Nature  on  the  way  to  become  albinesses.  There  are 
others  that  are  shot  through  with  golden  light,  with 
tawny  or  fulvous  tinges  in  various  degree, — positive  or 
stained  blondes,  dipped  in  yellow  sunbeams,  and  as 
unlike  in  their  mode  of  being  to  the  others  as  an 
orange  is  unlike  a  snowball.  The  albino-style  carries 
with  it  a  wide  pupil  and  a  sensitive  retina.  The 
other,  or  the  leonine  blonde,  has  an  opaline  fire  in 
her  clear  eye,  which  the  brunette  can  hardly  match 
with  her  quick  glittering  glances. 

Just  so  we  have  the  great  sun-kindled,  constructive 
imaginations,  and  a  far  more  numerous  class  of 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   213 

poets  who  have  a  certain  kind  of  moonlight-genius 
given  them  to  compensate  for  their  imperfection  of 
nature.  Their  want  of  mental  coloring-matter  makes 
them  sensitive  to  those  impressions  which  stronger 
minds  neglect  or  never  feel  at  all.  Many  of  them 
die  young,  and  all  of  them  are  tinged  with  melan- 
choly. There  is  no  more  beautiful  illustration  of  the 
principle  of  compensation  which  marks  the  Divine 
benevolence  than  the  fact  that  some  of  the  holiest 
lives  and  some  of  the  sweetest  songs  are  the  growth 
of  the  infirmity  which  unfits  its  subject  for  the 
rougher  duties  of  life.  When  one  reads  the  life  of 
Cowper,  or  of  Keats,  or  of  Lucretia  and  Margaret 
Davidson, — of  so  many  gentle,  sweet  natures,  born 
to  weakness,  and  mostly  dying  before  their  time, — 
one  cannot  help  thinking  that  the  human  race  dies 
out  singing,  like  the  swan  in  the  old  story.  The 
French  poet,  Gilbert,  who  died  at  the  Hotel  Dieu,  at 
the  age  of  twenty-nine, — (killed  by  a  key  in  his 
throat,  which  he  had  swallowed  when  delirious  in 
consequence  of  a  fall,) — this  poor  fellow  was  a  very 
good  example  of  the  poet  by  excess  of  sensibility.  I 
found,  the  other  day,  that  some  of  my  literary  friends 
had  never  heard  of  him,  though  I  suppose  few  edu- 
cated Frenchmen  do  not  know  the  lines  which  he 
wrote,  a  week  before  his  death,  upon  a  mean  bed  in 
the  great  hospital  of  Paris. 

"Au  banquet  de  la  vie,  infortune  convive, 
J'apparus  un  jour,  et  je  meurs ; 


214   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Je  meurs,  et  sur  ma  tombe,  ou  lentement  j'arrive, 
Nul  ne  viendra  verser  des  pleurs." 

At  life's  gay  banquet  placed,  a  poor  unhappy  guest, 

One  day  I  pass,  then  disappear ; 
I  die,  and  on  the  tomb  where  I  at  length  shall  rest 

No  friend  shall  come  to  shed  a  tear. 

You  remember  the  same  thing  in  other  words  some- 
where in  Kirke  White's  poems.  It  is  the  burden  of 
the  plaintive  songs  of  all  these  sweet  albino-poets. 
"  I  shall  die  and  be  forgotten,  and  the  world  will  go 
on  just  as  if  I  had  never  been  ; — and  yet  how  I  have 
loved!  how  I  have  longed!  how  I  have  aspired!" 
And  so  singing,  their  eyes  grow  brighter  and  brighter, 
and  their  features  thinner  and  thinner,  until  at  last 
the  veil  of  flesh  is  threadbare,  and,  still  singing,  they 
drop  it  and  pass  onward. 

Our  brains  are  seventy-year  clocks.  The 

Angel  of  Life  winds  them  up  once  for  all,  then  closes 
the  case,  and  gives  the  key  into  the  hand  of  the 
Angel  of  the  Resurrection. 

Tic-tac !  tic-tac !  go  the  wheels  of  thought ;  our 
will  cannot  stop  them ;  they  cannot  stop  themselves  ; 
sleep  cannot  still  them ;  madness  only  makes  them 
go  faster ;  death  alone  can  break  into  the  case,  and, 
seizing  the  ever-swinging  pendulum,  which  we  call 
the  heart,  silence  at  last  the  clicking  of  the  terrible 
escapement  we  have  carried  so  long  beneath  our 
wrinkled  foreheads. 


THE  AUTOCRAT   OF   THE   BREAKFAST-TABLE.        215 

If  we  could  only  get  at  them,  as  we  lie  on  our 
pillows  and  count  the  dead  beats  of  thought  after 
thought  and  image  after  image  jarring  through  the 
overtired  organ !  Will  nobody  block  those  wheels, 
uncouple  that  pinion,  cut  the  string  that  holds  those 
weights,  blow  up  the  infernal  machine  with  gun- 
powder ?  What  a  passion  comes  over  us  sometimes 
for  silence  and  rest ! — that  this  dreadful  mechanism, 
unwinding  the  endless  tapestry  of  time,  embroidered 
with  spectral  figures  of  life  and  death,  could  have 
but  one  brief  holiday  !  Who  can  wonder  that  men 
swing  themselves  off  from  beams  in  hempen  lassos  ? 
— that  they  jump  off  from  parapets  into  the  swift 
and  gurgling  waters  beneath  ? — that  they  take  coun- 
sel of  the  grim  friend  who  has  but  to  utter  his  one 
peremptory  monosyllable  and  the  restless  machine  is 
shivered  as  a  vase  that  is  dashed  upon  a  marble 
floor?  Under  that  building  which  we  pass  every 
day  there  are  strong  dungeons,  where  neither  hook, 
nor  bar,  nor  bed-cord,  nor  drinking-vessel  from  which 
a  sharp  fragment  may  be  shattered,  shall  by  any 
chance  be  seen.  There  is  nothing  for  it,  when  the 
brain  is  on  fire  with  the  whirling  of  its  wheels,  but 
to  spring  against  the  stone  wall  and  silence  them 
with  one  crash.  Ah,  they  remembered  that, — the 
kind  city  fathers, — and  the  walls  are  nicely  padded, 
so  that  one  can  take  such  exercise  as  he  likes  with- 
out damaging  himself  on  the  very  plain  and  service- 
able upholstery.  If  anybody  would  only  contrive 


216   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

some  kind  of  a  lever  that  one  could  thrust  in  among 
the  works  of  this  horrid  automaton  and  check  them, 
or  alter  their  rate  of  going,  what  would  the  world 
give  for  the  discovery  ? 

From  half  a  dime  to  a  dime,  according  to  the 

style  of  the  place  and  the  quality  of  the  liquor, — 
said  the  young  fellow  whom  they  call  John. 

You  speak  trivially,  but  not  unwisely, — I  said. 
Unless  the  will  maintain  a  certain  control  over  these 
movements,  which  it  cannot  stop,  but  can  to  some 
extent  regulate,  men  are  very  apt  to  try  to  get  at  the 
machine  by  some  indirect  system  of  leverage  or 
other.  They  clap  on  the  brakes  by  means  of  opium ; 
they  change  the  maddening  monotony  of  the  rhythm 
by  means  of  fermented  liquors.  It  is  because  the 
brain  is  locked  up  and  we  cannot  touch  its  move- 
ment directly,  that  we  thrust  these  coarse  tools  in 
through  any  crevice,  by  which  they  may  reach  the 
interior,  and  so  alter  its  rate  of  going  for  a  while, 
and  at  last  spoil  the  machine. 

•  Men  who  exercise  chiefly  those  faculties  of  the 
mind  which  work  independently  of  the  will, — poets 
and  artists,  for  instance,  who  follow  their  imagination 
in  their  creative  moments,  instead  of  keeping  it  in 
hand  as  your  logicians  and  practical  men  do  with 
their  reasoning  faculty, — such  men  are  too  apt  to  call 
in  the  mechanical  appliances  to  help  them  govern 
their  intellects. 

He  means  they  get  drunk, — said  the  young 

fellow  already  alluded  to  by  name. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   217 

Do  you  think  men  of  true  genius  are  apt  to  in- 
dulge in  the  use  of  inebriating  fluids  ? — said  the 
divinity-student. 

If  you  think  you  are  strong  enough  to  bear  what 
I  am  going  to  say, — I  replied, — I  will  talk  to  you 
about  this.  But  mind,  now,  these  are  the  things  that 
some  foolish  people  call  dangerous  subjects, — as  if 
these  vices  which  burrow  into  people's  souls,  as  the 
Guinea-worm  burrows  into  the  naked  feet  of  West- 
Indian  slaves,  would  be  more  mischievous  when  seen 
than  out  of  sight.  Now  the  true  way  to  deal  with 
those  obstinate  animals,  which  are  a  dozen  feet  long, 
some  of  them,  and  no  bigger  than  a  horse  hair,  is  to 
get  a  piece  of  silk  round  their  heads,  and  pull  them 
out  very  cautiously.  If  you  only  break  them  off, 
they  grow  worse  than  ever,  and  sometimes  kill  the 
person  who  has  the  misfortune  to  harbor  one  of 
them.  Whence  it  is  plain  that  the  first  thing  to  do 
is  to  find  out  where  the  head  lies\ 

Just  so  of  all  the  vices,  and  particularly  of  this 
vice  of  intemperance.  What  is  the  head  of  it,  and 
where  does  it  lie  ?  For  you  may  depend  upon  it, 
there  is  not  one  of  these  vices  that  has  not  a  head 
of  its  own, — an  intelligence, — a  meaning, — a  certain 
virtue,  I  was  going  to  say, — but  that  might,  perhaps, 
sound  paradoxical.  I  have  heard  an  immense  num- 
ber of  moral  physicians  lay  down  the  treatment  of 
moral  Guinea-worms,  and  the  vast  majority  of  them 

would  always  insist  that  the  creature  had  no  head  at 

10 


218        THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BEE AKF AST-TABLE. 

all,  but  was  all  body  and  tail.  So  I  have  found  a 
very  common  result  of  their  method  to  be  that  the 
string  slipped,  or  that  a  piece  only  of  the  creature 
was  broken  off,  and  the  worm  soon  grew  again,  as 
bad  as  ever.  The  truth  is,  if  the  Devil  could  only 
appear  in  church  by  attorney,  and  make  the  best 
statement  that  the  facts  would  bear  him  out  in  doing 
on  behalf  of  his  special  virtues,  (what  we  commonly 
call  vices,)  the  influence  of  good  teachers  would  be 
much  greater  than  it  is.  For  the  arguments  by 
which  the  Devil  prevails  are  precisely  the  ones  that 
the  Devil-queller  most  rarely  answers.  The  way  to 
argue  down  a  vice  is  not  to  tell  lies  about  it, — to  say 
that  it  has  no  attractions,  when  everybody  knows 
that  it  has, — but  rather  to  let  it  make  out  its  case 
just  as  it  certainly  will  in  the  moment  of  temptation, 
and  then  meet  it  with  the  weapons  furnished  by  the 
Divine  armory.  Ithuriel  did  not  spit  the  toad  on  his 
spear,  you  remember,  but  touched  him  with  it,  and 
the  blasted  angel  took  the  sad  glories  of  his  true 
shape.  If  he  had  shown  fight  then,  the  fair  spirits 
would  have  known  how  to  deal  with  him. 

That  all  spasmodic  cerebral  action  is  an  evil  is 
not  perfectly  clear.  Men  get  fairly  intoxicated  with 
music,  with  poetry,  with  religious  excitement,  — 
oftenest  with  love.  Ninon  de  1'Enclos  said  she  was 
so  easily  excited  that  her  soup  intoxicated  her,  and 
convalescents  have  been  made  tipsy  by  a  beef-steak. 

There  are  forms  and  stages  of  alcoholic  exaltation, 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   219 

which,  in  themselves,  and  without  regard  to  their 
consequences,  might  be  considered  as  positive  im- 
provements of  the  persons  affected.  When  the  slug- 
gish intellect  is  roused,  the  slow  speech  quickened, 
the  cold  nature  warmed,  the  latent  sympathy  devel- 
oped, the  flagging  spirit  kindled, — before  the  trains 
of  thought  become  confused,  or  the  will  perverted,  or 
the  muscles  relaxed, — just  at  the  moment  when  the 
whole  human  zoophyte  flowers  out  like  a  full-blown 
rose,  and  is  ripe  for  the  subscription-paper  or  the 
contribution-box, — it  would  be  hard  to  say  that  a 
man  was,  at  that  very  time,  worse,  or  less  to  be 
loved,  than  when  driving  a  hard  bargain  with  all  his 
meaner  wits  about  him.  The  difficulty  is,  that  the 
alcoholic  virtues  don't  wash;  but  until  the  water 
takes  their  colors  out,  the  tints  are  very  much  like 
those  of  the  true  celestial  stuff. 

[Here  I  was  interrupted  by  a  question  which  I  am 
very  unwilling  to  report,  but  have  confidence  enough 
in  those  friends  who  examine  these  records  to  com- 
mit to  their  candor. 

A  person  at  table  asked  me  whether  I  "  went  in 
for  rum  as  a  steady  drink?" — His  manner  made  the 
question  highly  offensive,  but  I  restrained  myself, 
and  answered  thus  : — ] 

Rum  I  take  to  be  the  name  which  unwashed 
moralists  apply  alike  to  the  product  distilled  from 
molasses  and  the  noblest  juices  of  the  vineyard. 
Burgundy  "  in  all  its  sunset  glow  "  is  rum.  Cham- 


220   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

pagne,  "the  foaming  wine  of  Eastern  France,"  is 
rum.  Hock,  which  our  friend,  the  Poet,  speaks  of  as 

"  The  Rhine's  breastmilk,  gushing  cold  and  bright, 
Pale  as  the  moon,  and  maddening  as  her  Ijght," 

is  rum.  Sir,  I  repudiate  the  loathsome  vulgarism  as 
an  insult  to  the  first  miracle  wrought  by  the  Founder 
of  our  religion !  I  address  myself  to  the  company. — 
I  believe  in  temperance,  nay,  almost  in  abstinence, 
as  a  rule  for  healthy  people.  I  trust  that  I  practice 
both.  But  let  me  tell  you,  there  are  companies  of 
men  of  genius  into  which  I  sometimes  go,  where 
the  atmosphere  of  intellect  and  sentiment  is  so  much 
more  stimulating  than  alcohol,  that,  if  I  thought  fit 
to  take  wine,  it  would  be  to  keep  me  sober. 

Among  the  gentlemen  that  I  have  known,  few,  if 
any,  were  ruined  by  drinking.  My  few  drunken 
acquaintances  were  generally  ruined  before  they  be- 
came drunkards.  The  habit  of  drinking  is  often  a 
vice,  no  doubt, — sometimes  a  misfortune, — as  when 
an  almost  irresistible  hereditary  propensity  exists  to 
indulge  in  it, — but  oftenest  of  all  a  punishment. 

Empty  heads, — heads  without  ideas  in  wholesome 
variety  and  sufficient  number  to  furnish  food  for  the 
mental  clockwork, — ill-regulated  heads,  where  the 
faculties  are  not  under  the  control  of  the  will, — these 
are  the  ones  that  hold  the  brains  which  their  owners 
are  so  apt  to  tamper  with,  by  introducing  the  appli- 
ances we  have  been  talking  about.  Now,  when  a 
gentleman's  brain  is  empty  or  ill-regulated,  it  is,  to  a 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   221 

great  extent,  his  own  fault ;  and  so  it  is  simple  retri- 
bution, that,  while  he  lies  slothfully  sleeping  or  aim- 
lessly dreaming,  the  fatal  habit  settles  on  him  like  a 
vampyre,  and  sucks  his  blood,  fanning  him  all  the 
while  with  its  hot  wings  into  deeper  slumber  or  idler 
dreams!  I  am  not  such  a  hard-souled  being  as  to 
apply  this  to  the  neglected  poor,  who  have  had  no 
chance  to  fill  their  heads  with  wholesome  ideas,  and 
to  be  taught  the  lesson  of  self-government.  I  trust 
the  tariff  of  Heaven  has  an  ad  valorem  scale  for 
them, — and  all  of  us. 

But  to  come  back  to  poets  and  artists; — if  they 
really  are  more  prone  to  the  abuse  of  stimulants, — 
and  I  fear  that  this  is  true, — the  reason  of  it  is  only 
too  clear.  A  man  abandons  himself  to  a  fine  frenzy, 
and  the  power  which  flows  through  him,  as  I  once 
explained  to  you,  makes  him  the  medium  of  a  great 
poem  or  a  great  picture.  The  creative  action  is  not 
voluntary  at  all,  but  automatic  ;  we  can  only  put  the 
mind  into  the  proper  attitude,  and  wait  for  the  wind, 
that  blows  where  it  listeth,  to  breathe  over  it.  Thus 
the  true  state  of  creative  genius  is  allied  to  reverie, 
or  dreaming.  If  mind  and  body  were  both  healthy, 
and  had  food  enough  and  fair  play,  I  doubt  whether 
any  men  would  be  more  temperate  than  the  imagin- 
ative classes.  But  body  and  mind  often  flag, — per- 
haps they  are  "ill-made  to  begin  with,  underfed  with 
bread  or  ideas,  overworked,  or  abused  in  some  way. 
The  automatic  action,  by  which  genius  wrought  its 


222   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

wonders,  fails.  There  is  only  one  thing  which  can 
rouse  the  machine  ;  not  will, — that  cannot  reach  it ; 
nothing  but  a  ruinous  agent,  which  hurries  the 
wheels  awhile  and  soon  eats  out  the  heart  of  the 
mechanism.  The  dreaming  faculties  are  always  the 
dangerous  ones,  because  their  mode  of  action  can  be 
imitated  by  artificial  excitement ;  the  reasoning  ones 
are  safe,  because  they  imply  continued  voluntary 
effort. 

I  think  you  will  find  it  true,  that,  before  any  vice 
can  fasten  on  a  man,  body,  mind,  or  moral  nature 
must  be  debilitated.  The  mosses  and  fungi  gather 
on  sickly  trees,  not  thriving  ones ;  and  the  odious 
parasites  which  fasten  on  the  human  frame  choose 
that  which  is  already  enfeebled.  Mr.  Walker,  the 
hygeian  humorist,  declared  that  he  had  such  a 
healthy  skin  it  was  impossible  for  any  impurity  to 
stick  to  it,  and  maintained  that  it  was  an  absurdity 
to  wash  a  face  which  was  of  necessity  always  clean. 
I  don't  know  how  much  fancy  there  was  in  this; 
but  there  is  no  fancy  in  saying  that  the  lassitude  of 
tired-out  operatives,  and  the  languor  of  imaginative 
natures  in  their  periods  of  collapse,  and  the  vacuity 
of  minds  untrained  to  labor  and  discipline,  fit  the 
soul  and  body  for  the  germination  of  the  seeds  of 
intemperance. 

Whenever  the  wandering  demon  of  Drunkenness 
finds  a  ship  adrift, — no  steady  wind  in  its  sails,  no 
thoughtful  pilot  directing  its  course, — he  .steps  on 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   223 

board,  takes  the  helm,  and  steers  straight  for  the 
maelstrom. 

1  wonder  if  you  know  the  terrible  smile  ? 

[The  young  fellow  whom  they  call  John  winked 
very  hard,  and  made  a  jocular  remark,  the  sense  of 
which  seemed  to  depend  on  some  double  meaning 
of  the  word  smile.  The  company  was  curious  to 
know  what  I  meant] 

There  are  persons — I  said — who  no  sooner  come 
within  sight  of  you  than  they  begin  to  smile,  with 
an  uncertain  movement  of  the  mouth,  which  con- 
veys the  idea  that  they  are  thinking  about  them- 
selves, and  thinking,  too,  that  you  are  thinking  they 
are  thinking  about  themselves, — and  so  look  at  you 
with  a  wretched  mixture  of  self-consciousness,  awk- 
wardness, and  attempts  to  carry  off  both,  which  are 
betrayed  by  the  cowardly  behaviour  of  the  eye  and 
the  tell-tale  weakness  of  the  lips  that  characterize 
these  unfortunate  beings. 

Why  do  you  call  them  unfortunate,  Sir? — 

asked  the  divinity-student. 

Because  it  is  evident  that  the  consciousness  of 
some  imbecility  or  other  is  at  the  bottom  of  this  ex- 
traordinary expression.  I  don't  think,  however,  that 
these  persons  are  commonly  fools.  I  have  known  a 
number,  and  all  of  them  were  intelligent.  I  think 
nothing  conveys  the  idea  of  under  breeding-  more 
than  this  self-betraying  smile.  Yet  I  think  this  pe- 


224   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

culiar  habit  as  well  as  that  of  meaningless  blushing^ 
may  be  fallen  into  by  very  good  people  who  meet 
often,  or  sit  opposite  each  other  at  table.  A  true 
gentleman's  face  is  infinitely  removed  from  all  such 
paltriness, — calm-eyed,  firm-mouthed.  I  think  Ti- 
tian understood  the  look  of  a  gentleman  as  well  as 
anybody  that  ever  lived.  The  portrait  of  a  young 
man  holding  a  glove  in  his  hand,  in  the  Gallery  of 
the  Louvre,  if  any  of  you  have  seen  that  collection, 
will  remind  you  of  what  I  mean. 

Do  I  think  these  people  know  the  peculiar 

look  they  have  ? — I  cannot  say ;  I  hope  not ;  I  am 
afraid  they  would  never  forgive  me,  if  they  did. 
The  worst  of  it  is,  the  trick  is  catching ;  when  one 
meets  one  of  these  fellows,  he  feels  a  tendency  to 
the  same  manifestation.  The  Professor  tells  me 
there  is  a  muscular  slip,  a  dependence  of  the  platysma 
myoideS)  which  is  called  the  risorius  Santorini. 

Say  that  once  more, — exclaimed  the  young 

fellow  mentioned  above. 

The  Professor  says  there  is  a  little  fleshy  slip 
called  Santorini's  laughing  muscle.  I  would  have 
it  cut  out  of  my  face,  if  I  were  born  with  one  of 
those  constitutional  grins  upon  it.  Perhaps  I  am 
uncharitable  in  my  judgment  of  those  sour-looking 
people  I  told  you  of  the  other  day,  and  of  these 
smiling  folks.  It  may  be  that  they  are  born  with 
these  looks,  as  other  people  are  with  more  generally 
recognized  deformities.  Both  are  bad  enough,  but  I 


THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  %    225 

had  rather  meet  three  of  the  scowlers  than  one  of 
the  smilers. 

There  is  another  unfortunate  way  of  looking, 

which  is  peculiar  to  that  amiable  sex  we  do  not  like 
to  find  fault  with.  There  are  some  very  pretty,  but, 
unhappily,  very  ill-bred  women,  who  don't  under- 
stand the  law  of  the  road  with  regard  to  handsome 
faces.  Nature  and  custom  would,  no  doubt,  agree 
in  conceding  to  all  males  the  right  of  at  least  two 
distinct  looks  at  every  comely  female  countenance, 
without  any  infraction  of  the  rules  of  courtesy  or  the 
sentiment  of  respect.  The  first  look  is  necessary  to 
define  the  person  of  the  individual  one  meets  so  as 
to  avoid  it  in  passing.  Any  unusual  attraction  de- 
tected in  a  first  glance  is  a  sufficient  apology  for  a 
second, — not  a  prolonged  and  impertinent  stare,  but 
an  appreciating  homage  of  the  eyes,  such  as  a 
stranger  may  inoffensively  yield  to  a  passing  image. 
It  is  astonishing  how  morbidly  sensitive  some  vul- 
gar beauties  are  to  the  slightest  demonstration  of 
this  kind.  When  a  lady  walks  the  streets,  she  leaves 
her  virtuous-indignation  countenance  at  home ;  she 
knows  well  enough  that  the  street  is  a  picture- 
gallery,  where  pretty  faces  framed  in  pretty  bonnets 
are  meant  to  be  seen,  and  everybody  has  a  right  to 
see  them. 

When  we  observe  how  the  same  features  and 

style  of  person  and  character  descend  from  gener- 
ation to  generation,  we  can  believe  that  some  in- 
10* 


226  *    THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

herited  weakness  may  account  for  these  peculiarities. 
Little  snapping-turtles  snap — so  the  great  naturalist 
tells  us — before  they  are  out  of  the  egg-shell.  I  am 
satisfied,  that,  much  higher  up  in  the  scale  of  life, 
character  is  distinctly  shown  at  the  age  of  — 2  or 
—3  months. 

My  friend,  the  Professor,  has  been  full  of  eggs 

lately.  [This  remark  excited  a  burst  of  hilarity, 
which  I  did  not  allow  to  interrupt  the  course  of  my 
observations.]  He  has  been  reading  the  great  book 
where  he  found  the  fact  about  the  little  snapping- 
turtles  mentioned  above.  Some  of  the  things  he 
has  told  me  have  suggested  several  odd  analogies 
enough. 

There  are  half  a  dozen  men,  or  so,  who  carry  in 
their  brains  the  ovarian  eggs  of  the  next  generation's 
or  century's  civilization.  These  eggs  are  not  ready 
to  be  laid  in  the  form  of  books  as  yet;  some  of  them 
are  hardly  ready  to  be  put  into  the  form  of  talk. 
But  as  rudimentary  ideas  or  inchoate  tendencies, 
there  they  are;  and  these  are  what  must  form  the 
future.  A  man's  general  notions  are  not  good  for 
much,  unless  he  has  a  crop  of  these  intellectual 
ovarian  eggs  in  his  own  brain,  or  knows  them  as 
they  exist  in  the  minds  of  others.  One  must  be  in 
the  habit  of  talking  with  such  persons  to  get  at  these 
rudimentary  germs  of  thought;  for  their  develop- 
ment is  necessarily  imperfect,  and  they  are  moulded 
on  new  patterns,  which  must  be  long  and  closely 


THE  AUTOCRAT    OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.        227 

studied.  But  these  are  the  men  to  talk  with.  No 
fresh  truth  ever  gets  into  a  book. 

A  good  many  fresh  lies  get  in,  anyhow, — said 

one  of  the  company. 

I  proceeded  in  spite  of  the  interruption. — All 
uttered  thought,  my  friend,  the  Professor,  says,  is 
of  the  nature  of  an  excretion.  Its  materials  have 
been  taken  in,  and  have  acted  upon  the  system,  and 
been  reacted  on  by  it;  it  has  circulated  and  done  its 
office  in  one  mind  before  it  is  given  out  for  the 
benefit  of  others.  It  may  be  milk  or  venom  to  other 
minds  ;  but,  in  either  case,  it  is  something  which  the 
producer  has  had  the  use  of  and  can  part  with.  A 
man  instinctively  tries  to  get  rid  of  his  thought  in 
conversation  or  in  print  so  soon  as  it  is  matured ; 
but  it  is  hard  to  get  at  it  as  it  lies  imbedded,  a 
mere  potentiality,  the  germ  of  a  germ,  in  his  in- 
tellect. 

Where  are  the  brains  that  are  fullest  of  these 

ovarian  eggs  of  thought  ? — I  decline  mentioning 
individuals.  The  producers  of  thought,  who  are 
few,  the  "jobbers"  of  thought,  who  are  many,  and 
the  retailers  of  thought,  who  are  numberless,  are  so 
mixed  up  in  the  popular  apprehension,  that  it  would 
be  hopeless  to  try  to  separate  them  before  opinion 
has  had  time  to  settle.  Follow  the  course  of  opinion 
on  the  great  subjects  of  human  interest  for  a  few 
generations  or  centuries,  get  its  parallax,  map  out  a 
small  arc  of  its  movement,  see  where  it  tends,  and 


228   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

then  see  who  is  in  advance  of  it  or  even  with  it ;  the 
•world  calls  him  hard  names,  probably;  but  if  you 
would  find  the  ova  of  the  future,  you  must  look  into 
the  folds  of  his  cerebral  convolutions. 

[The  divinity-student  looked  a  little  puzzled  at 
this  suggestion,  as  if  he  did  not  see  exactly  where 
he  was  to  come  out,  if  he  computed  his  arc  too 
nicely.  I  think  it  possible  it  might  cut  off  a  few 
corners  of  his  present  belief,  as  it  has  cut  off  martyr- 
burning  and  witch-hanging ; — but  time  will  show, 
— time  will  show,  as  the  old  gentleman  opposite 
says.] 

Oh, — here  is  that  copy  of  verses  I  told  you 

about. 

SPRING  HAS   COME. 
Intra  Muros. 

The  sunbeams,  lost  for  half  a  year, 

Slant  through  my  pane  their  morning  rays ; 

For  dry  Northwesters  cold  and  clear, 
The  East  blows  in  its  thin  blue  haze. 

And  first  the  snowdrop's  bells  are  seen, 

Then  close  against  the  sheltering  wall 
The  tulip's  horn  of  dusky  green, 

The  peony's  dark  unfolding  ball. 

The  golden-chaliced  crocus  burns ; 

The  long  narcissus-blades  appear ; 
The  cone-beaked  hyacinth  returns, 

And  lights  her  blue-flamed  chandelier. 


THE  AUTOCEAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   229 

The  willow's  whistling  lashes,  wrung 

By  the  wild  winds  of  gusty  March, 
"With  sallow  leaflets  lightly  strung, 

Are  swaying  by  the  tufted  larch. 

The  elms  have  robed  their  slender  spray 
With  full-blown  flower  and  embryo  leaf; 

Wide  o'er  the  clasping  arch  of  day 
Soars  like  a  cloud  their  hoary  chief. 

[See  the  proud  tulip's  flaunting  cup, 

That  flames  in  glory  for  an  hour, — 
Behold  it  withering, — then  look  up, — 

How  meek  the  forest-monarch's  flower ! — 

When  wake  the  violets,  Winter  dies  ; 

When  sprout  the  elm-buds,  Spring  is  near  ; 
When  lilacs  blossom,  Summer  cries, 

"  Bud,  little  roses  !  Spring  is  here !  "] 

The  windows  blush  with  fresh  bouquets, 

Cut  with  the  May-dew  on  their  lips ; 
The  radish  all  its  bloom  displays, 

Pink  as  Aurora's  finger-tips. 

Nor  less  the  flood  of  light  that  showers 

On  beauty's  changed  corolla-shades, — 
The  walks  are  gay  as  bridal  bowers 

With  rows  of  many-petalled  maids. 

The  scarlet  shell-fish  click  and  clash 

In  the  blue  barrow  where  they  slide ; 
The  horseman,  proud  of  streak  and  splash, 

Creeps  homeward  from  his  morning  ride. 


230   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Here  comes  the  dealer's  awkward  string, 
With  neck  in  rope  and  tail  in  knot, — 

Rough  colts,  with  careless  country-swing, 
In  lazy  walk  or  slouching  trot. 

Wild  filly  from  the  mountain-side, 

Doomed  to  the  close  and  chafing  thills, 

Lend  me  thy  long,  untiring  stride 
To  seek  with  thee  thy  western  hills ! 

I  hear  the  whispering  voice  of  Spring, 
The  thrush's  trill,  the  cat-bird's  cry, 

Like  some  poor  bird  with  prisoned  wing 
That  sits  and  sings,  but  longs  to  fly. 

Oh  for  one  spot  of  living  green, — 

One  little  spot  where  leaves  can  grow, — 

To  love  unblamed,  to  walk  unseen, 
To  dream  above,  to  sleep  below  ! 


IX. 

[Aqui  estd  encerrada  el  alma  del  licenciado  Pedro 
Garcias. 

If  I  should  ever  make  a  little  book  out  of  these 
papers,  which  I  hope  you  are  not  getting  tired  of,  I 
suppose  I  ought  to  save  the  above  sentence  for  a 
motto  on  the  title-page.  But  I  want  it  now,  and 
must  use  it.  I  need  not  say  to  you  that  the  words 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    231 

are  Spanish,  nor  that  they  are  to  be  found  in  the 
short  Introduction  to  "  Gil  Bias,"  nor  that  they  mean, 
"  Here  lies  buried  the  soul  of  the  licentiate  Pedro 
Garcias." 

I  warned  all  young  people  off  the  premises  when 
I  began  my  notes  referring  to  old  age.  I  must  be 
equally  fair  with  old  people  now.  They  are  earnestly 
requested  to  leave  this  paper  to  young  persons  from 
the  age  of  twelve  to  that  of  four-score  years  and  ten, 
at  which  latter  period  of  life  I  am  sure  that  I  shall 
have  at  least  one  youthful  reader.  You  know  well 
enough  what  I  mean  by  youth  and  age  ; — something 
in  the  soul,  which  has  no  more  to  do  with  the  color 
of  the  hair  than  the  vein  of  gold  in  a  rock  has  to  do 
with  the  grass  a  thousand  feet  above  it. 

I  am  growing  bolder  as  I  write.  I  think  it  requires 
not  only  youth,  but  genius,  to  read  this  paper.  I 
don't  mean  to  imply  that  it  required  any  whatsoever 
to  talk  what  I  have  here  written  down.  It  did  de- 
mand a  certain  amount  of  memory,  and  such  com- 
mand of  the  English  tongue  as  is  given  by  a  common 
school  education.  So  much  I  do  claim.  But  here  I 
have  related,  at  length,  a  string  of  trivialities.  You 
must  have  the  imagination  of  a  poet  to  transfigure 
them.  These  little  colored  patches  are  stains  upon 
the  windows  of  a  human  soul ;  stand  on  the  outside, 
they  are  but  dull  and  meaningless  spots  of  color; 
seen  from  within,  they  are  glorified  shapes  with  em 
purpled  wings  and  sunbright  aureoles. 


232        THE  AUTOCRAT    OF  THE   BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

My  hand  trembles  when  I  offer  you  this.  Many 
times  I  have  come  bearing  flowers  such  as  my  gar- 
den grew;  but  now  I  offer  you  this  poor,  brown, 
homely  growth,  you  may  cast  it  away  as  worthless. 
And  yet — and  yet — it  is  something  better  than 
flowers ;  it  is  a  seed-capsule.  Many  a  gardener  will 
cut  you  a  bouquet  of  his  choicest  blossoms  for  small 
fee,  but  he  does  not  love  to  let  the  seeds  of  his  rarest 
varieties  go  out  of  his  own  hands. 

It  is  by  little  things  that  we  know  ourselves  ;  a  soul 
would  very  probably  mistake  itself  for  another,  when 
once  disembodied,  were  it  not  for  individual  experi- 
ences which  differ  from  those  of  others  only  in  de- 
tails seemingly  trifling.  All  of  us  have  been  thirsty 
thousands  of  times,  and  felt,  with  Pindar,  that  water 
was  the  best  of  things.  I  alone,  as  I  think,  of  all 
mankind,  remember  one  particular  pailful  of  water, 
flavored  with  the  white-pine  of  which  the  pail  was 
made,  and  the  brown  mug  out  of  which  one  Edmund, 
a  red-faced  and  curly-haired  boy,  was  averred  to  have 
bitten  a  fragment  in  his  haste  to  drink ;  it  being  then 
high  summer,  and  little  full-blooded  boys  feeling  very 
warm  and  porous  in  the  low-"  studded  "  school-room 
where  Dame  Prentiss,  dead  and  gone,  ruled  over 
young  children,  many  of  whom  are  old  ghosts  now, 
and  have  known  Abraham  for  twenty  or  thirty  years 
of  our  mortal  time. 

Thirst  belongs  to  humanity,  everywhere,  in  all 
ages ;  but  that  white-pine  pail,  and  that  brown  mug 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   233 

belong  to  me  in  particular ;  and  just  so  of  my  special 
relationships  with  other  things  and  with  my  race. 
9ne  could  never  remember  himself  in  eternity  by  the 
mere  fact  of  having  loved  or  hated  any  more  than  by 
that  of  having  thirsted ;  love  and  hate  have  no  more 
individuality  in  them  than  single  waves  in  the  ocean  ; 
— but  the  accidents  or  trivial  marks  which  distin- 
guished those  whom  we  loved  or  hated  make  their 
memory  our  own  forever,  and  with  it  that"  of  our  own 
personality  also. 

Therefore,  my  aged  friend  of  five-and-twenty,  or 
thereabouts,  pause  at  the  threshold  of  this  particular 
record,  and  ask  yourself  seriously  whether  you  are 
fit  to  read  such  revelations  as  are  to  follow.  For. 
observe,  you  have  here  no  splendid  array  of  petals 
such  as  poets  offer  you, — nothing  but  a  dry  shell, 
containing,  if  you  will  get  out  what  is  in  it,  a  few 
small  seeds  of  poems.  You  may  laugh  at  them,  if 
you  like.  I  shall  never  tell  you  what  I  think  of  you 
for  so  doing.  But  if  you  can  read  into  the  heart  of 
these  things,  in  the  light  of  other  memories  as  slight, 
yet  as  dear  to  your  soul,  then  you  are  neither  more 
nor  less  than  a  POET,  and  can  afford  to  write  no  more 
verses  during  the  rest  of  your  natural  life, — which 
abstinence  I  take  to  be  one  of  the  surest  marks  of 
your  meriting  the  divine  name  I  have  just  bestowed 
upon  you. 

May  I  beg  of  you  who  have  begun  this  paper, 
nobly  trusting  to  your  own  imagination  and  sensi- 


234   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

bilities  to  give  it  the  significance  which  it  does  not  lay 
claim  to  without  your  kind  assistance, — may  I  beg 
of  you,  I  say,  to  pay  particular  attention  to  the 
brackets  which  enclose  certain  paragraphs  ?  I  want 
my  "  asides,"  you  see,  to  whisper  loud  to  you  who 
read  my  notes,  and  sometimes  I  talk  a  page  or  two 
to  you  without  pretending  that  I  said  a  word  of  it 
to  our  boarders.  You  will  find  a  very  long  "  aside  " 
to  you  almost  as  soon  as  you  begin  to  read.  And 
so,  dear  young  friend,  fall  to  at  once,  taking  such 
things  as  I  have  provided  for  you ;  and  if  you  turn 
them,  by  the  aid  of  your  powerful  imagination,  into 
a  fair  banquet,  why,  then,  peace  be  with  you,  and  a 
summer  by  the  still  waters  of  some  quiet  river,  or  by 
some  yellow  beach,  where,  as  my  friend  the  Professor, 
says,  you  can  sit  with  Nature's  wrist  in  your  hand 
and  count  her  ocean-pulses.] 

I  should  like  to  make  a  few  intimate  revelations 
relating  especially  to  my  early  life,  if  I  thought  you 
would  like  to  hear  them. 

[The  schoolmistress  turned  a  little  in  her  chair,  and 
sat  with  her  face  directed  partly  towards  me. — Half- 
mourning  now ; — purple  ribbon.  That  breastpin  she 
wears  has  gray  hair  in  it ;  her  mother's,  no  doubt; — 
I  remember  our  landlady's  daughter  telling  me,  soon 
after  the  schoolmistress  came  to  board  with  us,  that 
she  had  lately  "  buried  a  payrent."  That's  what 
made  her  look  so  pale, — kept  the  poor  dying  thing 
alive  with  her  own  blood.  Ah!  long  illness  is  the 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   235 

real  vampyrism ;  think  of  living  a  year  or  two  after 
one  is  dead,  by  sucking  the  life-blood  out  of  a  frail 
young  creature  at  one's  bedside !  Well,  souls  grow 
white,  as  well  as  cheeks,  in  these  holy  duties ,  one 
that  goes  in  a  nurse  may  come  out  an  angel. — God 
bless  all  good  women ! — to  their  soft  hands  and  pity- 
ing hearts  we  must  all  come  at  last ! The  school- 
mistress has  a  better  color  than  when  she  came. 

Too  late! "  It  might  have  been." Amen ! 

How  many  thoughts  go  to  a  dozen  heart- 
beats, sometimes !  There  was  no  long  pause  after 
my  remark  addressed  to  the  company,  but  in  that 
time  I  had  the  train  of  ideas  and  feelings  I  have 
just  given  flash  through  my  consciousness  sudden 
and  sharp  as  the  crooked  red  streak  that  springs  out 
of  its  black  sheath  like  the  creese  of  a  Malay  in  his 
death-race,  and  stabs  the  earth  right  and  left  in  its 
blind  rage. 

I  don't  deny  that  there  was  a  pang  in  it, — yes,  a 
stab ;  but  there  was  a  prayer,  too, — the  "Amen"  be- 
longed to  that. — Also,  a  vision  of  a  four-story  brick 
house,  nicely  furnished, — I  actually  saw  many  specific 
articles, — curtains,  sofas,  tables,  and  others,  and  could 
draw  the  patterns  of  them  at  this  moment, — a  brick 
house,  I  say,  looking  out  on  the  water,  with  a  fair 
parlor,  and  books  and  busts  and  pots  of  flowers  and 
bird-cages,  all  complete  ;  and  at  the  window,  looking 
on  the  water,  two  of  us. — "  Male  and  female  created 
He  them." — These  two  were  standing  at  the  window, 


236   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

when  a  smaller  shape  that  was  playing  near  them 

looked  up  at  me  with  such  a  look  that  I 

poured  out  a  glass  of  water,  drank  it  all  down,  and 
then  continued.] 

I  said  I  should  like  to  tell  you  some  things,  such 
as  people  commonly  never  tell,  about  my  early  recol- 
lections. Should  you  like  to  hear  them  ? 

Should  we  like  to  hear  them  ? — said  the  school- 
mistress ; — no,  but  we  should  love  to. 

[The  voice  was  a  sweet  one,  naturally,  and  had 
something  very  pleasant  in  its  tone,  just  then. — The 
four-story  brick  house,  which  had  gone  out  like  a 
transparency  when  the  light  behind  it  is  quenched, 
glimmered  again  for  a  moment ;  parlor,  books,  busts, 
flower-pots,  bird-cages,  all  complete, — and  the  figures 
.as  before.] 

We  are  waiting  with  eagerness,  Sir, — said  the 
divinity-student. 

[The  transparency  went  out  as  if  a  flash  of  black 
lightning  had  struck  it.] 

If  you  want  to  hear  my  confessions,  the  next 
thing — I  said — is  to  know  whether  I  can  trust  you 
with  them.  It  is  only  fair  to  say  that  there  are  a 
great  many  people  in  the  world  that  laugh  at  such 
things.  I  think  they  are  fools,  but  perhaps  you 
don't  all  agree  with  me. 

Here  are  children  of  tender  age  talked  to  as  if 
they  were  capable  of  understanding  Calvin's  "  Insti- 
tutes," and  nobody  has  honesty  or  sense  enough  to 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   237 

tell  the  plain  truth  about  the  little  wretches :  that 
they  are  as  superstitious  as  naked  savages,  and  such 
miserable  spiritual  cowards — that  is,  if  they  have  any 
imagination — that  they  will  believe  anything  which 
is  taught  them,  and  a  great  deal  more  which  they 
teach  themselves. 

I  was  born  and  bred,  as  I  have  told  you  twenty 
times,  among  books  and  those  who  knew  what  was 
in  books.  I  was  carefully  instructed  in  things  tem- 
poral and  spiritual.  But  up  to  a  considerable  matu- 
rity of  childhood  I  believed  Raphael  and  Michael 
Angelo  to  have  been  superhuman  beings.  The 
central  doctrine  of  the  prevalent  religious  faith  of 
Christendom  was  utterly  confused  and  neutralized  in 
my  mind  for  years  by  one  of  those  too  common  sto- 
ries of  actual  life,  which  I  overheard  repeated  in  a 
whisper. — Why  did  I  not  ask  ?  you  will  say. — You 
don't  remember  the  rosy  pudency  of  sensitive  chil- 
dren. The  first  instinctive  movement  of  the  little" 
creatures  is  to  make  a  cache,  and  bury  in  it  beliefs, 
doubts,  dreams,  hopes,  and  terrors.  I  am  uncovering 
one  of  these  caches.  Do  you  think  I  was  neces- 
sarily a  greater  fool  and  coward  than  another  ? 

I  was  afraid  of  ships.  Why,  I  could  never  tell. 
The  masts  looked  frightfully  tall, — but  they  were  not 
so  tall  as  the  steeple  of  our  old  yellow  meeting-house. 
At  any  rate  I  used  to  hide  my  eyes  from  the  sloops 
and  schooners  that  were  wont  to  lie  at  the  end  of 
the  bridge,  and  I  confess  that  traces  of  this  undefined 


238   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

terror  lasted  very  long. — One  other  source  of  alarm 
had  a  still  more  fearful  significance.  There  was  a 
great  wooden  HAND, — a  glove-maker's  sign,  which 
used  to  swing  and  creak  in  the  blast,  as  it  hung  from 
a  pillar  before  a  certain  shop  a  mile  or  two  outside 
of  the  city.  Oh,  the  dreadful  hand !  Always  hang- 
ing there  ready  to  catch  up  a  little  boy,  who  would 
come  home  to  supper  no  more,  nor  yet  to  bed, — 
whose  porringer  would  be  laid  away  empty  thence- 
forth, and  his  half-worn  shoes  wait  until  his  small 
brother  grew  to  fit  them. 

As  for  all  manner  of  superstitious  observances,  I 
used  once  to  think  I  must  have  been  peculiar  in 
having  such  a  list  of  them,  but  I  now  believe  that 
half  the  children  of  the  same  age  go  through  the 
same  experiences.  No  Roman  soothsayer  ever  had 
such  a  catalogue  of  omens  as  I  found  in  the  Sibyl- 
line leaves  of  my  childhood.  That  trick  of  throwing 
a  stone  at  a  tree  and  attaching  some  mighty  issue  to 
hitting  or  missing,  which  you  will  find  mentioned  in 
one  or  more  biographies,  I  well  remember.  Stepping 
on  or  over  certain  particular  things  or  spots — Dr. 
Johnson's  especial  weakness — I  got  the  habit  of  at 
a  very  early  age. — I  won't  swear  that  I  have  riot 
some  tendency  to  these  not  wise  practices  even  at 
this  present  date.  [How  many  of  you  that  read 
these  notes  can  say  the  same  thing !] 

With  these  follies  mingled  sweet  delusions,  which 
I  loved  so  well  I  would  not  outgrow  them,  even 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   239 

when  it  required  a  voluntary  effort  to  put  a  moment- 
ary trust  in  them.  Here  is  one  which  I  cannot  help 
telling  you. 

The  firing  of  the  great  guns  at  the  Navy-yard  is 
easily  heard  at  the  place  where  I  was  born  and  lived. 
"  There  is  a  ship  of  war  come  in,"  they  used  to  say, 
when  they  heard  them.  Of  course,  I  supposed  that 
such  vessels  came  in  unexpectedly,  after  indefinite 
years  of  absence, — suddenly  as  falling  stones ;  and 
that  the  great  guns  roared  in  their  astonishment  and 
delight  at  the  sight  of  the  old  war-ship  splitting  the 
bay  with  her  cutwater.  Now,  the  sloop-of-war  the 
Wasp,  Captain  Blakely,  after  gloriously  capturing 
the  Reindeer  and  the  Avon,  had  disappeared  from 
the  face  of  the  ocean,  and  was  supposed  to  be  lost. 
But  there  was  no  proof  of  it,  and,  of  course,  for  a 
time,  hopes  were  entertained  that  she  might  be 
heard  from.  Long  after  the  last  real  chance  had 
utterly  vanished,  I  pleased  myself  with  the  fond  illu- 
sion that  somewhere  on  the  waste  of  waters  she  was 
still  floating,  and  there  were  years  during  which  I 
never  heard  the  sound  of  the  great  guns  booming 
inland  from  the  Navy-yard  without  saying  to  myself, 
"  The  Wasp  has  come ! "  and  almost  thinking  I 
could  see  her,  as  she  rolled  in,  crumpling  the  water 
before  her,  weather-beaten,  barnacled,  with  shattered 
spars  and  threadbare  canvas,*  welcomed  by  the  shouts 
and  tears  of  thousands.  This  was  one  of  those 
dreams  that  I  nursed  and  never  told.  Let  me  make 


240   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

a  clean  breast  of  it  now,  and  say,  that,  so  late  as  to 
have  outgrown  childhood,  perhaps  to  have  got  far  on 
towards  manhood,  when  the  roar  of  the  cannon  has 
struck  suddenly  on  my  ear,  I  have  started  with  a 
thrill  of  vague  expectation  and  tremulous  delight, 
and  the  long-unspoken  words  have  articulated  them- 
selves in  the  mind's  dumb  whisper,  The  Wasp  has 
come  ! 

Yes,  children  believe  plenty  of  queer  things. 

I  suppose  all  of  you  have  had  the  pocket-book  fever 
when  you  were  little  ? — What  do  I  mean  ?  Why, 
ripping  up  old  pocket-books  in  the  firm  belief  that 
bank-bills  to  an  immense  amount  were  hidden  in 
them. — So,  too,  you  must  all  remember  some  splen- 
did unfulfilled  promise  of  somebody  or  other,  which 
fed  you  with  hopes  perhaps  for  years,  and  which  left 
a  blank  in  your  life  which  nothing  has  ever  filled  up. 
— O.  T.  quitted  our  household  carrying  with  him  the 
passionate  regrets  of  the  more  youthful  members. 
He  was  an  ingenious  youngster ;  wrote  wonderful 
copies,  and  carved  the  two  initials  given  above  with 
great  skill  on  all  available  surfaces.  I  thought,  by 
the  way,  they  were  all  gone ;  but  the  other  day  I 
found  them  on  a  certain  door  which  I  will  show  you 
some  time.  How  it  surprised  me  to  find  them  so 
near  the  ground !  I  had  thought  the  boy  of  no 
trivial  dimensions.  Well,  O.  T.,  when  he  went, 
made  a  solemn  promise  to  two  of  us.  I  was  to 
have  a  ship,  and  the  other  a  mar£m-house  (last  syl- 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   241 

lable  pronounced  as  in  the  word  tin).  Neither  ever 
came  ;  but,  oh,  how  many  and  many  a  time  I  have 
stolen  to  the  corner, — the  cars  pass  close  by  it  at  this 
time, — and  looked  up  that  long  avenue,  thinking 
that  he  must  be  coming  now,  almost  sure,  as  I 
turned  to  look  northward,  that  there  he  would  be, 
trudging  toward  me,  the  ship  in  one  hand  and  the 
mar^m-house  in  the  other ! 

[You  must  not  suppose  that  all  I  am  going  to  say, 
as  well  as  all  I  have  said,  was  told  to  the  whole 
company.  The  young  fellow  whom  they  call  John 
was  in  the  yard,  sitting  on  a  barrel  and  smoking  a 
cheroot,  the  fumes  of  which  came  in,  not  ungrateful, 
through  the  open  window.  The  divinity-student 
disappeared  in  the  midst  of  our  talk.  The  poor 
relation  in  black  bombazine,  who  looked  and  moved 
as  if  all  her  articulations  were  elbow-joints,  had 
gone  off  to  her  chamber,  after  waiting  with  a  look 
of  soul-subduing  decorum  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs 
until  one  of  the  male  sort  had  passed  her  and 
ascended  into  the  upper  regions.  This  is  a  famous 
point  of  etiquette  in  our  boarding-house ;  in  fact, 
between  ourselves,  they  make  such  an  awful  fuss 
about  it,  that  I,  for  one,  had  a  great  deal  rather  have 
them  simple  enough  not  to  think  of  such  matters  at 
all.  Our  landlady's  daughter  said,  the  other  even- 
ing, that  she  was  going  to  "  retire  "  ;  whereupon  the 
young  fellow  called  John  took  up  a  lamp  and  in- 
sisted on  lighting  her  to  the  foot  of  the  staircase. 


11 


242   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Nothing  would  induce  her  to  pass  by  him,  until  tfie 
schoolmistress,  saying  in  good  plain  English  that  it 
was  her  bed-time,  walked  straight  by  them  both,  not 
seeming  to  trouble  herself  about  either  of  them. 

I  have  been  led  away  from  what  I  meant  the  por- 
tion included  in  these  brackets  to  inform  my  readers 
about.  I  say,  then,  most  of  the  boarders  had  left  the 
table  about  the  time  when  I  began  telling  some  of 
these  secrets  of  mine, — all  of  them,  in  fact,  but  the 
old  gentleman  opposite  and  the  schoolmistress.  I 
understand  why  a  young  woman  should  like  to  hear 
these  simple  but  genuine  experiences  of  early  life, 
which  are,  as  I  have  said,  the  little  brown  seeds  of 
what  may  yet  grow  to  be  poems  with  leaves  of 
azure  and  gold  ;  but  when  the  old  gentleman  pushed 
up  his  chair  nearer  to  me,  and  slanted  round  his  best 
ear,  and  once,  when  I  was  speaking  of  some  trifling, 
tender  reminiscence,  drew  a  long  breath,  with  such  a 
tremor  in  it  that  a  little  more  and  it  would  have 
been  a  sob,  why,  then  I  felt  there  must  be  something 
of  nature  in  them  which  redeemed  their  seeming  in- 
significance. Tell  me,  man  or  woman  with  whom  [ 
am  whispering,  have  you  not  a  small  store  of  recol- 
lections, such  as  these  I  am  uncovering,  buried 
beneath  the  dead  leaves  of  many  summers,  perhaps 
under  the  unmelting  snows  of  fast-returning  winters, 
— a  few  such  recollections,  which,  if  you  should 
write  them  all  out,  would  be  swept  into  some  care- 
less editor's  drawer,  and  might  cost  a  scanty  half- 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   243 

hour's  lazy  reading  to  his  subscribers, — and  yet,  if 
Death  should  cheat  you  of  them,  you  would  not 
know  yourself  in  eternity  ?] 

1  made  three  acquaintances  at  a  very  early 

period  of  life,  my  introduction  to  whom  was  never 
forgotten.  The  first  unequivocal  act  of  wrong  that 
has  left  its  trace  in  my  memory  was  this :  refus- 
ing a  small  favor  asked  of  me, — nothing  more  than 
telling  what  had  happened  at  school  one  morn- 
ing. No  matter  who  asked  it ;  but  there  were  cir- 
cumstances which  saddened  and  awed  me.  I  had 
no  heart  to  speak ; — I  faltered  some  miserable,  per- 
haps petulant  excuse,  stole  away,  and  the  first  battle 
of  life  was  lost.  What  remorse  followed  I  need  not 
tell.  Then  and  there,  to  the  best  of  my  knowledge, 
I  first  consciously  took  Sin  by  the  hand  and  turned 
my  back  on  Duty.  Time  has  led  me  to  look  upon 
my  offence  more  leniently ;  I  do  not  believe  it  or 
any  other  childish  wrong  is  infinite,  as  some  have 
pretended,  but  infinitely  finite.  Yet,  oh  if  I  had  but 
won  that  battle ! 

The  great  Destroyer,  whose  awful  shadow  it  was 
that  had  silenced  me,  came  near  me, — but  never,  so 
as  to  be  distinctly  seen  and  remembered,  during  my 
tender  years.  -  There  flits  dimly  before  me  the  image 
of  a  little  girl,  whose  name  even  I  have  forgotten,  a 
schoolmate,  whom  we  missed  one  day,  and  were 
told  that  she  had  died.  But  what  death  was  I 
never  had  any  very  distinct  idea,  until  one  day  I 


244       THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

climbed  the  low  stone  wall  of  the  old  burial-ground 
and  mingled  with  a  group  that  were  looking  into  a 
very  deep,  long,  narrow  hole,  dug  down  through  the 
green  sod,  down  through  the  brown  loam,  down 
through  the  yellow  gravel,  and  there  at  the  bottom 
was  an  oblong  red  box,  and  a  still,  sharp,  white  face 
of  a  young  man  seen  through  an  opening  at  one  end 
of  it.  When  the  lid  was  closed,  and  the  gravel  and 
stones  rattled  down  pell-mell,  and  the  woman  in 
black,  who  was  crying  and  wringing  her  hands, 
went  off  with  the  other  mourners,  and  left  him,  then 
I  felt  that  I  had  seen  Death,  and  should  never  forget 
him. 

One  other  acquaintance  I  made  at  an  earlier  pe- 
riod of  life  than  the  habit  of  romancers  authorizes. — 
Love,  of  course. — She  was  a  famous  beauty  after- 
wards.— I  am  satisfied  that  many  children  rehearse 
their  parts  in  the  drama  of  life  before  they  have  shed 
all  their  milk-teeth. — I  think  I  won't  tell  the  story 
of  the  golden  blonde. — I  suppose  everybody  has  had 
his  childish  fancies ;  but  sometimes  they  are  pas- 
sionate impulses,  which  anticipate  all  the  tremulous 
emotions  belonging  to  a  later  period.  Most  children 
remember  seeing  and  adoring  an  angel  before  they 
were  a  dozen  years  old. 

[The  old  gentleman  had  left  his  chair  opposite  and 
taken  a  seat  by  the  schoolmistress  and  myself,  a 
little  way  from  the  table. — It's  true,  it's  true, — said 
the  old  gentleman. — He  took  hold  of  a  steel  watch- 


THE   AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.        245 

chain,  which  carried  a  large,  square  gold  key  at -one 
end  and  was  supposed  to  have  some  kind  of  time- 
keeper at  the  other.  With  some  trouble  he  dragged 
up  an  ancient-looking,  thick,  silver,  bull's-eye  watch. 
He  looked  at  it  for  a  moment, — hesitated, — touched 
the  inner  corner  of  his  right  eye  with  the  pulp  of  his 
middle  finger, — looked  at  the  face  of  the  watch, — 
said  it  was  getting  into  the  forenoon, — then  opened 
the  watch  and  handed  me  the  loose  outside  case 
without  a  word. — The  watch-paper  had  been  pink 
once,  and  had  a  faint  tinge  still,  as  if  all  its  tender 
life  had  not  yet  quite  faded  out.  Two  little  birds,  a 
flower,  and,  in  small  school-girl  letters,  a  date, — 17 . . 
— no  matter. — Before  I  was  thirteen  years  old, — said 

the  old  gentleman. 1  don't  know  what  was  in 

that  young  schoolmistress's  head,  nor  why  she  should 
have  done  it ;  but  she  took  out  the  watch-paper  and 
put  it  softly  to  her  lips,  as  if  she  were  kissing  the 
poor  thing  that  made  it  so  long  ago.  The  old  gen- 
tleman took  the  watch-paper  carefully  from  her, 
replaced  it,  turned  away  and  walked  out,  holding 
the  watch  in  his  hand.  I  saw  him  pass  the  window 
a  moment  after  with  that  foolish  white  hat  on  his 
head ;  he  couldn't  have  been  thinking  what  he  was 
about  when  he  put  it  on.  So  the  schoolmistress 
and  I  were  left  alone.  I  drew  my  chair  a  shade 
nearer  to  her,  and  continued.] 

And  since  I  am  talking  of  early  recollections,  I 
don't  know  why  I   shouldn't  mention  some  others 


246   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

that  still  cling  to  me, — not  that  you  will  attach  any 
very  particular  meaning  to  these  same  images  so 
full  of  significance  to  me,  but  that  you  will  find 
something  parallel  to  them  in  your  own  memory. 
You  remember,  perhaps,  what  I  said  one  day  about 
smells.  There  were  certain  sounds  also  which  had  a 
mysterious  suggestiveness  to  me, — not  so  intense, 
perhaps,  as  that  connected  with  the  other  sense,  but 
yet  peculiar,  and  never  to  be  forgotten. 

The  first  was  the  creaking  of  the  wood-sleds, 
bringing  their  loads  of  oak  and  walnut  from  the 
country,  as  the  slow-swinging  oxen  trailed  them 
along  over  the  complaining  snow,  in  the  cold,  brown 
light  of  early  morning.  Lying  in  bed  and  listening 
to  their  dreary  music  had  a  pleasure  in  it  akin  to  the 
Lucretian  luxury,  or  that  which  Byron  speaks  of  as 
to  be  enjoyed  in  looking  on  at  a  battle  by  one  "  who 
hath  no  friend,  no  brother  there." 

There  was  another  sound,  in  itself  so  sweet,  and 
so  connected  with  one  of  those  simple  and  culious 
superstitions  of  childhood  of  which  I  have  spoken, 
that  I  can  never  cease  to  cherish  a  sad  sort  of  love 
for  it. — Let  me  tell  the  superstitious  fancy  first. 
The  Puritan  "  Sabbath,"  as  everybody  knows,  began 
at  "  sundown "  on  Saturday  evening.  To  such 
observance  of  it  I  was  born  and  bred.  As  the  large, 
round  disk  of  day  declined,  a  stillness,  a  solemnity,  a 
somewhat  melancholy  hush  came  over  us  all.  It 
was  time  for  work  to  cease,  and  for  playthings  to  be 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   247 

put  away.  The  world  of  active  life  passed  into  the 
shadow  of  an  eclipse,  not  to  emerge  until  the  sun 
should  sink  again  beneath  the  horizon. 

It  was  in  this  stillness  of  the  world  without  and 
of  the  soul  within  that  the  pulsating  lullaby  of  the 
evening  crickets  used  to  make  itself  most  distinctly 
heard, — so  that  I  well  remember  I  used  to  think  that 
the  purring  of  these  little  creatures,  which  mingled 
with  the  batrachian  hymns  from  the  neighboring 
swamp,  was  peculiar  to  Saturday  evenings.  I  don't 
know  that  anything  could  give  a  clearer  idea  of  the 
quieting  an.d  subduing  effect  of  the  old  habit  of 
observance  of  what  was  considered  holy  time,  than 
this  strange,  childish  fancy. 

Yes,  and  there  was  still  another  sound  which 
mingled  its  solemn  cadences  with  the  waking  and 
sleeping  dreams  of  my  boyhood.  It  was  heard  only 
at  times,— a  deep,  muffled  roar,  which  rose  and 
fell,  not  loud,  but  vast, — a  whistling  boy  would  have 
drowned  it  for  his  next  neighbor,  but  it  must  have 
been  heard  over  the  space  of  a  hundred  square  miles. 
I  used  to  wonder  what  this  might  be.  Could  it  be 
the  roar  of  the  thousand  wheels  and  the  ten  thousand 
footsteps  jarring  and  trampling  along  the  stones  of 
the  neighboring  city  ?  That  would  be  continuous  ; 
but  this,  as  I  have  said,  rose  and  fell  in  regular 
rhythm.  I  remember  being  told,  and  I  suppose  this 
to  have  been  the  true  solution,  that  it  was  the  sound 
of  the  waves,  after  a  high  wind,  breaking  on  the  long 


248   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

beaches  many  miles  distant.  I  should  really  like  to 
know  whether  any  observing  people  living  ten  miles, 
more  or  less,  inland  from  long  beaches, — in  such  a 
town,  for  instance,  as  Cantabridge,^in  the  eastern 
part  of  the  Territory  of  the  Massachusetts, — have 
ever  observed  any  such  sound,  and  whether  it  was 
rightly  accounted  for  as  above. 

Mingling  with  these  inarticulate  sounds  in  the 
low  murmur  of  memory,  are  the  echoes  of  certain 
voices  I  have  heard  at  rare  intervals.  I  grieve  to 
say  it,  but  our  people,  I  think,  have  not  generally 
agreeable  voices.  The  marrowy  organisms,  with 
skins  that  shed  water  like  the  backs  of  ducks,  with 
smooth  surfaces  neatly  padded  beneath,  and  velvet 
linings  to  their  singing-pipes,  are  not  so  common 
among  us  as  that  other  pattern  of  humanity  with 
angular  outlines  and  plane  surfaces,  arid  integu- 
ments, hair  like  the  fibrous  covering  of  a  cocoa-nut 
in  gloss  and  suppleness  as  well  as  color,  and  voices 
at  once  thin  and  strenuous, — acidulous  enough  to 
produce  effervescence  with  alkalis,  and  stridulous 
enough  to  sing  duets  with  the  katydids.  I  think 
our  conversational  soprano,  as  sometimes  overheard 
in  the  cars,  arising  from  a  group  of  young  persons, 
who  may  have  taken  the  train  at  one  of  our  great 
industrial  centres,  for  instance, — young  persons  of 
the  female  sex,  we  will  say,  who  have  bustled  in 
full-dressed,  engaged  in  loud  strident  speech,  and 
who,  after  free  discussion,  have  fixed  on  two  or  more 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE.   249 

double  seats,  which  having  secured,  they  proceed  to 
eat  apples  and  hand  round  daguerreotypes, — I  say, 
I  think  the  conversational  soprano,  heard  under  these 
circumstances,  would  not  be  among  the  allurements 
the  old  Enemy  would  put  in  requisition,  were  he 
getting  up  a  new  temptation  of  St.  Anthony. 

There  are  sweet  voices  among  us,  we  all  know, 
and  voices  not  musical,  it  may  be,  to  those  who  hear 
them  for  the  first  time,  yet  sweeter  to  us  than  any 
we  shall  hear  until  we  listen  to  some  warbling  angel 
in  the  overture  to  that  eternity  of  blissful  harmonies 
we  hope  to  enjoy. — But  why  should  I  tell  lies  ?  If 
my  friends  love  me,  it  is  because  I  try  to  tell  the 
truth.  I  never  heard  but  two  voices  in  my  life  that 
frightened  me  by  their  sweetness. 

Frightened  you? — said  the  schoolmistress. — 

Yes,  frightened  me.  They  made  me  feel  as  if  there 
might  be  constituted  a  creature  with  such  a  chord  in 
her  voice  to  some  string  in  another's  soul,  that,  if  she 
but  spoke,  he  would  leave  all  and  follow  her,  though 
it  were  into  the  jaws  of  Erebus.  Our  only  chance 
to  keep  our  wits  is,  that  there  are  so  few  natural 
chords  between  others'  voices  and  this  string  in  our 
souls,  and  that  those  which  at  first  may  have  jarred 
a  little  by  and  by  come  into  harmony  with  it. — But 
I  tell  you  this  is  no  fiction.  You  may  call  the  story 
of  Ulysses  and  the  Sirens  a  fable,  but  what  will  you 
say  to  Mario  and  the  poor  lady  who  followed  him  ? 
Whose  were  those  two  voices  that  bewitched 


250   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

me  so  ? — They  both  belonged  to  German  women. 
One  was  a  chambermaid,  not  otherwise  fascinating. 
The  key  of  my  room  at  a  certain  great  hotel  was 
missing,  and  this  Teutonic  maiden  was  summoned 
to  give  information  respecting  it.  The  simple  soul 
was  evidently  not  long  from  her  mother-land,  and 
spoke  with  sweet  uncertainty  of  dialect.  But  to 
hear  her  wonder  and  lament  and  suggest,  with  soft, 
liquid  inflexions,  and  low,  sad  murmurs,  in  tones  as 
full  of  serious  tenderness  for  the  fate  of  the  lost  key 
as  if  it  had  been  a  child  that  had  strayed  from  its 
mother,  was  so  winning,  that,  had  her  features  and 
figure  been  as  delicious  as  her  accents, — if  she  had 
looked  like  the  marble  Clytie,  for  instance, — why,  all 
I  can  say  is 

[The  schoolmistress  opened  her  eyes  so  wide,  that 
I  stopped  short.] 

I  was  only  going  to  say  that  I  should  have  drowned 
myself.  For  Lake  Erie  was  close  by,  and  it  is  so 
much  better  to  accept  asphyxia,  which  takes  only 
three  minutes  by  the  watch,  than  a  mesalliance,  that 
lasts  fifty  years  to  begin  with,  and  then  passes  along 
down  the  line  of  descent,  (breaking  out  in  all  man- 
ner of  boorish  manifestations  of  feature  and  man- 
ner, which,  if  men  were  only  as  short-lived  as  horses, 
could  be  readily  traced  back  through  the  square- 
roots  and  the  cube-roots  of  the  family  stem  on  which 
you  have  hung  the  armorial  bearings  of  the  De 
Champignons  or  the  De  la  Morues,  until  one  came 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    251 

to  beings  that  ate  with  knives  and  said  "  Haow  ?  ") 
that  no  person  of  right  feeling  could  have  hesitated 
for  a  single  moment. 

The  second  of  the  ravishing  voices  I  have  heard 
was,  as  I  have  said,  that  of  another  German  woman. 
— I  suppose  I  shall  ruin  myself  by  saying  that 
such  a  voice  could  not  have  come  from  any  Ameri- 
canized human  being. 

What  was  there  in  it? — said  the  school- 
mistress,— and,  upon  rny  word,  her  tones  were  so 
very  musical,  that  I  almost  wished  I  had  said  three 
voices  instead  of  two,  and  not  made  the  unpatriotic 
remark  above  reported. — Oh,  I  said,  it  had  so  much 
woman  in  it, — muliebrity,  as  well  as  femineity  ; — no 
self-assertion,  such  as  free  suffrage  introduces  into 
every  word  and  movement ;  large,  vigorous  nature, 
running  back  to  those  huge-limbed  Germans  of  Taci- 
tus, but  subdued  by  the  reverential  training  and 
tuned  by  the  kindly  culture  of  fifty  generations. 
Sharp  business  habits,  a  lean  soil,  independence,  en- 
terprise, and  east  winds,  are  not  the  best  things  for 
the  larynx.  Still,  you  hear  noble  voices  among  us, 
— I  have  known  families. famous  for  them, — but  ask 
the  first  person  you  meet  a  question,  and  ten  to  one 
there  is  a  hard,  sharp,  metallic,  matter-of-business 
clink  in  the  accents  of  the  answer,  that  produces  the 
effect  of  one  of  those  bells  which  small  trades-people 
connect  with  their  shop-doors,  and  which  spring  upon 
your  ear  with  such  vivacity,  as  you  enter,  that  your 


252   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

first  impulse  is  to  retire  at  once  from  the  pre- 
cincts. 

Ah,  but  I  must  not  forget  that  dear  little  child 

I  saw  and  heard  in  a  French  hospital.  Between  two 
and  three  years  old.  Fell  out  of  her  chair  and  snap- 
ped both  thigh-bones.  Lying  in  bed,  patient,  gentle. 
Rough  students  round  her,  some  in  white  aprons, 
looking  fearfully  business-like;  but  the  child  placid, 
perfectly  still.  I  spoke  to  her,  and  the  blessed  little 
creature  answered  me  in  a  voice  of  such  heavenly 
sweetness,  with  that  reedy  thrill  in  it  which  you  have 
heard  in  the  thrush's  even-song,  that  I  hear  it  at  this 
moment,  while  I  am  writing,  so  many,  many  years 
afterwards. —  Oest  tout  comme  un  serin,  said  the 
French  student  at  my  side. 

These  are  the  voices  which  struck  the  key-note  of 
my  conceptions  as  to  what  the  sounds  we  are  to  hear 
in  heaven  will  be,  if  we  shall  enter  through  one  of 
the  twelve  gates  of  pearl.  There  must  be  other 
things  besides  aerolites  that  wander  from  their  own 
spheres  to  ours;  and  when  we  speak  of  celestial 
sweetness  or  beauty,  we  may  be  nearer  the  literal 
truth  than  we  dream.  If  mankind  generally  are  the 
shipwrecked  survivors  of  some  pre-Adamitic  cata- 
clysm, set  adrift  in  these  little  open  boats  of  humani- 
ty to  make  one  more  trial  to  reach  the  shore, — as  some 
grave  theologians  have  maintained, — if,  in  plain  Eng- 
lish, men  are  the  ghosts  of  dead  devils  who  have 
"  died  into  life,'r  (to  borrow  an  expression  from 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   253 

Keats,)  and  walk  the  earth  in  a  suit  of  living  rags 
which  lasts  three  or  four  score  summers, — why,  there 
must  have  been  a  few  good  spirits  sent  to  keep  them 
company,  and  these  sweet  voices  I  speak  of  must 
belong  to  them. 

1  wish  you  could  once  hear  my  sister's  voice, 

— said  the  schoolmistress. 

If  it  is  like  yours,  it  must  be  a  pleasant  one, — 
said  I. 

I  never  thought  mine  was  anything, — said  the 
schoolmistress. 

How  should  you  know  ? — said  I. — People  never 
hear  their  own  voices, — any  more  than  they  see  their 
own  faces.  There  is  not  even  a  looking-glass  for  the 
voice.  Of  course,  there  is  something  audible  to  us 
when  we  speak  ;  but  that  something  is  not  our  own 
voice  as  it  is  known  to  all  our  acquaintances.  I 
think,  if  an  image  spoke  to  us  in  our  own  tones,  we 
should  not  know  them  in  the  least. — How  pleasant  it 
yyould  be,  if  in  another  state  of  being  we  could  have 
shapes  like  our  former  selves  for  playthings, — we 
standing  outside  or  inside  of  them,  as  we  liked,  and 
they  being  to  us  just  what  we  used  to  be  to  others ! 

1  wonder  if  there  will  be  nothing  like  what 

we  call  "  play,"  after  our  earthly  toys  are  broken, — 
said  the  schoolmistress. 

Hush, — said  I, — what  will  the  divinity-student 
say? 

[I  thought  she  was  hit,  that  time  ; — but  the  shot 


254        THE  AUTOCRAT   OF   THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

must  have  gone  over  her,  or  on  one  side  of  her  ;  she 
did  not  flinch.] 

Oh, — said  the  schoolmistress, — he  must  look  out 
for  my  sister's  heresies ;  I  am  afraid  he  will,  be  too 
busy  with  them  to  take  care  of  mine. 

Do  you  mean  to  say, — said  I, — that  it  is  your  sis- 
ter whom  that  student 

[The  young  fellow  commonly  known  as  John,  who 
had  been  sitting  on  the  barrel,  smoking,  jumped  off 
just  then,  kicked  over  the  barrel,  gave  it  a  push  with 
his  foot  that  set  it  rolling,  and  stuck  his  saucy-looking 
face  in  at  the  window  so  as  to  cut  my  question  off 
in  the  middle ;  and  the  schoolmistress  leaving  the 
room  a  few  minutes  afterwards,  I  did  not  have  a 
chance  to  finish  it. 

The  young  fellow  came  in  and  sat  down  in  a  chair, 
putting  his  heels  on  the  top  of  another. 

Pooty  girl, — said  he. 

A  fine  young  lady, — I  replied. 

Keeps  a  fust-rate  school,  according  to  accounts, — 
said  he, — teaches  all  sorts  of  things, — Latin  and 
Italian  and  music.  Folks  rich  once, — smashed  up. 
She  went  right  ahead  as  smart  as  if  she'd  been  born 
to  work.  That's  the  kind  o'  girl  I  go  for.  I'd 
marry  her,  only  two  or  three  other  girls  would  drown 
themselves,  if  I  did. 

I  think  the  above  is  the  longest  speech  of  this  young 
fellow's  which  I  have  put  on  record.  I  do  not  like 
to  change  his  peculiar  expressions,  for  this  is  one  of 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   255 

those  cases  in  which  the  style  is  the  man,  as  M.  de 
Buffon  says.  The  fact  is,  the  young  fellow  is  a 
good-hearted  creature  enough,  only  too  fond  of  his 
jokes, — and  if  it  were  not  for  those  heat-lightning 
winks  on  one  side  of  his  face,  I  should  not  mind  his 
fun  much.] 

[Some  days  after  this,  when  the  company  were 
together  again,  I  talked  a  little.] 

1  don't  think  I  have  a  genuine  hatred  for  any- 
body. I  am  well  aware  that  I  differ  herein  from  the 
sturdy  English  moralist  and  the  stout  American  tra- 
gedian. I  don't  deny  that  I  hate  the  sight  of  certain 
people ;  but  the  qualities  which  make  me  tend  to 
hate  the  man  himself  are  such  as  I  am  so  much  dis- 
posed to  pity,  that,  except  under  immediate  aggrava- 
tion, I  feel  kindly  enough  to  the  worst  of  them.  It 
is  such  a  sad  thing  to  be  born  a  sneaking  fellow,  so 
much  worse  than  to  inherit  a  hump-back  or  a  couple 
of  club-feet,  that  I  sometimes  feel  as  if  we  ought  to 
love  the  crippled  souls,  if  I  may  use  this  expression, 
with  a  certain  tenderness  which  we  need  not  waste 
on  noble  natures.  One  who  is  born  with  such  con- 
genital incapacity  that  nothing  can  make  a  gentle- 
man of  him  is  entitled,  not  to  our  wrath,  but  to  our 
profoundest  sympathy.  But  as  we  cannot  help  hat- 
ing the  sight  of  these  people,  just  as  we  do  that  of 
physical  deformities,  we  gradually  eliminate  them 
from  our  society, — we  love  them,  but  open  the  win- 


256   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

dow  and  let  them  go.  By  the  time  decent  people 
reach  middle  age  they  have  weeded  their  circle  pretty 
well  of  these  unfortunates,  unless  they  have  a  taste 
for  such  animals ;  in  which  case,  no  matter  what 
their  position  may  be,  there  is  something,  you  may 
be  sure,  in  their  natures  akin  to  that  of  their  wretched 
parasites. 

— • — The  divinity-student  wished  to  know  what  I 
thought  of  affinities,  as  well  as  of  antipathies  ;  did  I 
believe  in  love  at  first  sight  ? 

Sir, — said  I, — all  men  love  all  women.  That  is 
the  prima-facie  aspect  of  the  case.  The  Court  of 
Nature  assumes  the  law  to  be,  that  all  men  do  so ; 
and  the  individual  man  is  bound  to  show  cause  why 
he  does  not  love  any  particular  woman.  A  man, 
says  one  of  my  old  black-letter  law-books,  may  show 
divers  good  reasons,  as  thus :  He  hath  not  seen  the 
person  named  in  the  indictment ;  she  is  of  tender 
age,  or  the  reverse  of  that ;  she  hath  certain  personal 
disqualifications, — as,  for  instance,  she  is  a  black- 
amoor, or  hath  an  ill-favored  countenance  ;  or,  his 
capacity  of  loving  being  limited,  his  affections  are 
engrossed  by  a  previous  comer ;  and  so  of  other 
conditions.  Not  the  less  is  it  true  that  he  is  bound 
by  duty  and  inclined  by  nature  to  love  each  and 
every  woman.  Therefore  it  is  that  each  woman 
virtually  summons  every  man  to  show  cause  why  he 
doth  not  love  her.  This  is  not  by  written  document, 
or  direct  speech,  for  the  most  part,  but  by  certain 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   257 

signs  of  silk,  gold,  and  other  materials,  which  say  to 
all  men, — Look  on  me  and  love,  as  in  duty  bound. 
Then  the  man  pleadeth  his  special  incapacity,  what- 
soever that  may  be, — as,  for  instance,  impecuniosity, 
or  that  he  hath  one  or  many  wives  in  his  household, 
or  that  he  ,is  of  mean  figure,  or  small  capacity ;  of 
which  reasons  it  may  be  noted,  that  the  first  is, 
according  to  late  decisions,  of  chiefest  authority. — So 
far  the  old  law-book.  But  there  is  a  note  from  an 
older  authority,  saying  that  every  woman  doth  also 
love  each  and  every  man,  except  there  be  some  good 
reason  to  the  contrary ;  and  a  very  observing  friend 
of  mine,  a  young  unmarried  clergyman,  tells  me, 
that,  so  far  as  his  experience  goes,  he  has  reason  to 
think  the  ancient  author  had  fact  to  justify  his  state- 
ment. 

I'll  tell  you  how  it  is  with  the  pictures  of  women 
we  fall  in  love  with  at  first  sight. 

We  a'n't  talking  about  pictures, — said  the 

landlady's  daughter, — we're  talking  about  women. 

I  understood  that  we  were  speaking  of  love  at 
sight, — I  remarked,  mildly. — Now,  as  all  a  man 
knows  about  a  woman  whom  he  looks  at  is  just 
what  a  picture  as  big  as  a  copper,  or  a  "nickel," 
rather,  at  the  bottom  of  his  eye  can  teach  him,  I 
think  I  am  right  in  saying  we  are  talking  about  the 
pictures  of  women. — Well,  now,  the  reason  why  a 
man  is  not  desperately  in  love  with  ten  thousand 
women  at  once  is  just  that  which  prevents  all  our 


258   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

portraits  being  distinctly  seen  upon  that  wall.  They 
all  are  painted  there  by  reflection  from  our  faces,  but 
because  all  of  them  are  painted  on  each  spot,  and 
each  on  the  same  surface,  and  many  other  objects  at 
the  same  time,  no  one  is  seen  as  a  picture.  But 
darken  a  chamber  and  let  a  single  pencil  of  rays  in 
through  a  key-hole,  then  you  have  a  picture  on  the 
wall.  We  never  fall  in  love  with  a  woman  in  dis- 
tinction from  women,  until  we  can  get  an  image  of 
her  through  a  pin-hole ;  and  then  we  can  see  nothing 
else,  and  nobody  but  ourselves  can  see  the  image  in 
our  mental  camera-obscura. 

My  friend,  the  Poet,  tells  me  he  has  to  leave 

town  whenever  the  anniversaries  come  round. 

What's  the  difficulty  ?— Why,  they  all  want  him 
to  get  up  and  make  speeches,  or  songs,  or  toasts ; 
which  is  just  the  very  thing  he  doesn't  want  to  do. 
He  is  an  old  story,  he  says,  and  hates  to  show  on 
these  occasions.  But  they  tease  him,  and  coax  him, 
and  can't  do  without  him,  and  feel  all  over  his  poor 
weak  head  until  they  get  their  fingers  on  the  fonta- 
nelle,  (the  Professor  will  tell  you  what  this  means, — 
he  says  the  one  at  the  top  of  the  head  always  re- 
mains open  in  poets,)  until,  by  gentle  pressure  on 
that  soft  pulsating  spot,  they  stupefy  him  to  the 
point  of  acquiescence. 

There  are  times,  though,  he  says,  when  it  is  a 
pleasure,  before  going  to  some  agreeable  meeting,  to 
rush  out  into  one's  garden  and  clutch  up  a  handful 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    259 

of  what  grows  there, — weeds  and  violets  together, — 
not  cutting  them  off,  but  pulling  them  up  by  the 
roots  with  the  brown  earth  they  grow  in  sticking  to 
them.  That's  his  idea  of  a  post-prandial  perform- 
ance. Look  here,  now.  These  verses  I  am  going 
to  read  you,  he  tells  me,  were  pulled  up  by  the  roots 
just  in  that  way,  the  other  day. — Beautiful  enter- 
tainment,— names  there  on  the  plates  that  flow  from 
all  English-speaking  tongues  as  familiarly  as  and  or 
the ;  entertainers  known  wherever  good  poetry  and 
fair  title-pages  are  held  in  esteem;  guest  a  kind- 
hearted,  modest,  genial,  hopeful  poet,  who  sings  to 
the  hearts  of  his  countrymen,  the  British  people,  the 
songs  of  good  cheer  which  the  better  days  to  come, 
as  all  honest  souls  trust  and  believe,  will  turn  into 
the  prose  of  common  life.  My  friend,  the  Poet, "says 
you  must  not  read  such  a  string  of  verses  too  liter- 
ally. If  he  trimmed  it  nicely  below,  you  wouldn't 
see  the  roots,  he  says,  and  he  likes  to  keep  them,  and 
a  little  of  the  soil  clinging  to  them. 

This  is  the  farewell  my  friend,  the  Poet,  read  to 
his  and  our  friend,  the  Poet : — 

A   GOOD  TIME   GOING! 

BRAVE  singer  of  the  coming  time, 

Sweet  minstrel  of  the  joyous  present, 
Crowned  with  the  noblest  wreath  of  rhyme, 

The  holly-leaf  of  Ayrshire's  peasant, 
Good-bye  !    Good-bye  ! — Our  hearts  and  hands, 

Our  lips  in  honest  Saxon  phrases, 


260   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Cry,  God  be  with  him,  till  he  stands 
His  feet  among  the  English  daisies  ! 

Tis  here  we  part ; — for  other  eyes 

The  busy  deck,  the  fluttering  streamer, 
The  dripping  arms  that  plunge  and  rise, 

The  waves  in  foam,  the  ship  in  tremor, 
The  kerchiefs  waving  from  the  pier, 

The  cloudy  pillar  gliding  o'er  him, 
The  deep  blue  desert,  lone  and  drear, 

With  heaven  above  and  home  before  him ! 

His  home ! — the  Western  giant  smiles, 

And  twirls  the  spotty  globe  to  find  it ; — 
This  little  speck  the  British  Isles  ? 

'Tis  but  a  freckle, — never  mind  it ! — 
He  laughs,  and  all  his  prairies  roll, 

Each  gurgling  cataract  roars  and  chuckles, 
And  ridges  stretched  from  pole  to  pole 

Heave  till  they  crack  their  iron  knuckles ! 

But  memory  blushes  at  the  sneer, 

And  Honor  turns  with  frown  defiant, 
And  Freedom,  leaning  on  her  spear, 

Laughs  louder  than  the  laughing  giant : — 
"  An  islet  is  a  world,"  she  said, 

*'  When  glory  with  its  dust  has  blended, 
And  Britain  keeps  her  noble  dead 

Till  earth  and  seas  and  skies  are  rended ! " 

Beneath  each  swinging  forest-bough 
Some  arm  as  stout  in  death  reposes, — 

From  wave-washed  foot  to  heaven-kissed  brow 
Her  valor's  life-blood  runs  in  roses  ; 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   261 

Nay,  let  our  brothers  of  the  West 

Write  smiling  in  their  florid  pages, 
One-half  her  soil  has  walked  the  rest 

In  poets,  heroes,  martyrs,  sages ! 

Hugged  in  the  clinging  billow's  clasp, 

From  sea-weed  fringe  to  mountain  heather, 
The  British  oak  with  rooted  grasp 

Her  slender  handful  holds  together ; — 
With  cliffs  of  white  and  bowers  of  green, 

And  Ocean  narrowing  to  caress  her, 
And  hills  and  threaded  streams  between, — 

Our  little  mother  isle,  God  bless  her  I 

In  earth's  broad  temple  where  we  stand, 

Fanned  by  the  eastern  gales  that  brought  us, 
We  hold  the  missal  in  our  hand, 

Bright  with  the  lines  our  Mother  taught  us ; 
Where'er  its  blazoned  page  betrays 

The  glistening  links  of  gilded  fetters, 
Behold,  the  half-turned  leaf  displays 

Her  rubric  stained  in  crimson  letters  ! 

Enough  !   To  speed  a  parting  friend 

'Tis  vain  alike  to  speak  and  listen ; — 
Yet  stay, — these  feeble  accents  blend 

With  rays  of  light  from  eyes  that  glisten. 
Good-bye  !  once  more, — and  kindly  tell 

In  words  of  peace  the  young  world's  story, — 
And  say,  besides, — we  love  too  well 

Our  mother's  soil,  our  father's  glory  ! 

When  my  friend,  the   Professor,  found  that  my 
friend,  the  Poet,  had  been  coming  out  in  this  full- 


262   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

blown  style,  he  got  a  little  excited,  as  you  may  have 
seen  a  canary,  sometimes,  when  another  strikes  up. 
The  Professor  says  he  knows  he  can  lecture,  and 
thinks  he  can  write  verses.  At  any  rate,  he  has 
often  tried,  and  now  he  was  determined  to  try  again. 
So  when  some  professional  friends  of  his  called  him 
up,  'one  day,  after  a  feast  of  reason  and  a  regular 
"  freshet "  of  soul  which  had  lasted  two  or  three 
hours,  he  read  them  these  verses.  He  introduced 
them  with  a  few  remarks,  he  told  me,  of  which  the 
only  one  he  remembered  was  this:  that  he  had 
rather  write  a  single  line  which  one  among  them 
should  think  worth  remembering  than  set  them  all 
laughing  with  a  string  of  epigrams.  It  was  all 
right,  I  don't  doubt ;  at  any  rate,  that  was  his  fancy 
then,  and  perhaps  another  time  he  may  be  obsti- 
nately hilarious ;  however,  it  may  be  that  he  is 
growing  graver,  for  time  is  a  fact  so  long  as  clocks 
and  watches  continue  to  go,  and  a  cat  can't  be  a 
kitten  always,  as  the  old  gentleman  opposite  said 
the  other  day. 

You  must  listen  to  this  seriously,  for  I  think  the 
Professor  was  very  much  in  earnest  when  he  wrote 
it. 

THE   TWO   ARMIES. 

As  Life's  unending  column  pours, 

Two  marshalled  hosts  are  seen, — 
Two  armies  on  the  trampled  shores 

That  Death  flows  black  between. 


THE  AUTOCKAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   263 

One  marches  to  the  drum-beat's  roll, 
The  wide-mouthed  clarion's  bray, 
And  bears  upon  a  crimson  scroll, 
*  Our  glory  is  to  slay." 

One  moves  in  silence  by  the  stream, 

With  sad,  yet  watchful  eyes, 
Calm  as  the  patient  planet's  gleam 

That  walks  the  clouded  skies. 

Along  its  front  no  sabres  shine, 

No  blood-red  pennons  wave  ; 
Its  banner  bears  the  single  line, 

"  Our  duty  is  to  save." 

For  those  no  death-bed's  lingering  shade  ; 

At  Honor's  trumpet-call, 
With  knitted  brow  and  lifted  blade 

In  Glory's  arms  they  fall. 

For  these  no  clashing  falchions  bright, 

No  stirring  battle-cry ; 
The  bloodless  stabber  calls  by  night, — 

Each  answers,  "  Here  am  I  ! " 

For  those  the  sculptor's  laurelled  bust, 

The  builder's  marble  piles, 
The  anthems  pealing  o'er  their  dust 

Through  long  cathedral  aisles. 

For  these  the  blossom-sprinkled  turf 

That  floods  the  lonely  graves, 
When  Spring  rolls  in  her  sea-green  surf 

In  flowery-foaming  waves. 


264   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Two  paths  lead  upward  from  below, 

And  angels  wait  above, 
Who  count  each  burning  life-drop's  flow, 

Each  falling  tear  of  Love. 

Though  from  the  Hero's  bleeding  breast 

Her  pulses  Freedom  drew, 
Though  the  white  lilies  in  her  crest 

Sprang  from  that  scarlet  dew, — 

While  Valor's  haughty  champions  wait 

Till  all  their  scars  are  shown, 
Love  walks  unchallenged  through  the  gate, 

To  sit  beside  the  Throne  ! 


X. 

[THE  schoolmistress  came  down  with  a  rose  in 
her  hair, — a  fresh  June  rose.  She  has  been  walking 
early;  she  has  brought  back  two  others, — one  on 
each  cheek. 

I  told  her  so,  in  some  such  pretty  phrase  as  I 
could  muster  for  the  occasion.  Those  two  blush- 
roses  I  just  spoke  of  turned  into  a  couple  of  dam- 
asks. I  suppose  all  this  went  through  my  mind,  for 
this  was  what  I  went  on  to  say : — ] 

I  love  the  damask  rose  best  of  all.  The  flowers 
our  mothers  and  sisters  used  to  love  and  cherish, 
those  which  grow  beneath  our  eaves  and  by  our 
doorstep,  are  the  ones  we  always  love  best.  If  the 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   265 

Houyhnhnms  should  ever  catch  me,  and,  finding 
me  particularly  vicious  and  unmanageable,  send  a 
man-tamer  to  Rareyfy  me,  I'll  tell  you  what  drugs 
he  would  have  to  take  and  how  he  would  have  to 
use  them.  Imagine  yourself  reading  a  number  of 
the  Houyhnhnm  Gazette,  giving  an  account  of 
such  an  experiment. 

"  MAN-TAMING    EXTRAORDINARY. 

"  THE  soft-hoofed  semi-quadruped  recently  cap- 
tured was  subjected  to  the  art  of  our  distinguished 
man- tamer  in  presence  of  a  numerous  assembly. 
The  animal  was  led  in  by  two  stout  ponies,  closely 
confined  by  straps  to  prevent  his  sudden  and  dan- 
gerous tricks  of  shoulder-hitting  and  foot-striking. 
His  countenance  expressed  the  utmost  degree  of 
ferocity  and  cunning. 

"  The  operator  took  a  handful  of  budding1  lilac- 
leaves^  and  crushing  them  slightly  between  his  hoofs, 
so  as  to  bring  out  their  peculiar  fragrance,  fastened 
them  to  the  end  of  a  long  pole  and  held  them  tow- 
ards the  creature.  Its  expression  changed  in  an 
instant, — it  drew  in  their  fragrance  eagerly,  and 
attempted  to  seize  them  with  its  soft  split  hoofs. 
Having  thus  quieted  his  suspicious  subject,  the 
operator  proceeded  to  tie  a  blue  hyacinth  to  the  end 
of  the  pole  and  held  it  out  towards  the  wild  animal. 
The  effect  was  magical.  Its  eyes  filled  as  if  with 
raindrops,  and  its  lips  trembled  as  it  pressed  them 
12 


266   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

to  the  flower.  After  this  it  was  perfectly  quiet,  and 
brought  a  measure  of  corn  to  the  man-tamer,  with- 
out showing  the  least  disposition  to  strike  with  the 
feet  or  hit  from  the  shoulder." 

That  will  do  for  the  Houyhnhnm  Gazette. — Do 
you  ever  wonder  why  poets  talk  so  much  about 
flowers  ?  Did  you  ever  hear  of  a  poet  who  did  not 
talk  about  them  ?  Don't  you  think  a  poem,  which, 
for  the  sake  of  being  original,  should  leave  them  out, 
would  be  like  those  verses  where  the  letter  a  or  e  or 
some  other  is  omitted  ?  No, — they  will  bloom  o' cr 
and  over  again  in  poems  as  in  the  summer  fields,  to 
the  end  of  time,  always  old  and  always  new.  Why 
should  we  be  more  shy  of  repeating  ourselves  than 
the  spring  be  tired  of  blossoms  or  the  night  of  stars? 
Look  at  Nature.  She  never  wearies  of  saying  over 
her  floral  pater-noster.  In  the  crevices  of  Cyclopean 
walls, — in  the  dust  where  men  lie,  dust  also, — on 
the  mounds  that  bury  huge  cities,  the  wreck  of  Nin- 
eveh and  the  Babel-heap, — still  that  same  sweet 
prayer  and  benediction.  The  Amen !  of  Nature  is 
always  a  flower. 

Are  you  tired  of  my  trivial  personalities, — those 
splashes  and  streaks  of  sentiment,  sometimes  per- 
haps of  sentimentality,  which  you  may  see  when  I 
show  you  my  heart's  corolla  as  if  it  were  a  tulip  ? 
Pray,  do  not  give  yourself  the  trouble  to  fancy  me 
an  idiot  whose  conceit  it  is  to  treat  himself  as  an 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   267 

exceptional  being.  It  is  because  you  are  just  like 
me  that  I  talk  and  know  that  you  will  listen.  "We 
are  all  splashed  and  streaked  with  sentiments, — not 
with  precisely  the  same  tints,  or  in  exactly  the  same 
patterns,  but  by  the  same  hand  and  from  the  same 
palette. 

I  don't  believe  any  of  you  happen  to  have  just 
the  same  passion  for  the  blue  hyacinth  which  I  have, 
— very  certainly  not  for  the  crushed  lilac-leaf-buds ; 
many  of  you  do  not  know  how  sweet  they  are. 
You  love  the  smell  of  the  sweet-fern  and  the  bay- 
berry-leaves,  I  don't  doubt ;  but  I  hardly  think  that 
the  last  bewitches  you  with  young  memories  as  it 
does  me.  For  the  same  reason  I  come  back  to 
damask  roses,  after  having  raised  a  good  many  of 
the  rarer  varieties.  I  like  to  go  to  operas  and  con- 
certs, but  there  are  queer  little  old  homely  sounds  that 
are  better  than  music  to  me.  However,  I  suppose 
it's  foolish  to  tell  such  things. 

It  is  pleasant  to  be  foolish  at  the  right  time, 

— said  the  divinity-student ; — saying  it,  however,  in 
one  of  the  dead  languages,  which  I  think  are  unpop- 
ular for  summer-reading,  and  therefore  do  not  bear 
quotation  as  such. 

Well,  now, — said  I, — suppose  a  good,  clean,  whole- 
some-looking countryman's  cart  stops  opposite  my 
door, — Do  I  want  any  huckleberries? — If  I  do  not, 
there  are  those  that  do.  Thereupon  my  soft-voiced 
handmaid  bears  out  a  large  tin  pan,  and  then  the 


268   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

wholesome  countryman,  heaping  the  peck-measure, 
spreads  his  broad  hands  around  its  lower  arc  to 
confine  the  wild  and  frisky  berries,  and  so  they  run 
nimbly  along  the  narrowing  channel  until  they  tum- 
ble rustling  down  in  a  black  cascade  and  tinkle  on 
the  resounding  metal  beneath. — I  won't  say  that  this 
rushing  huckleberry  hail-storm  has  not  more  music 
for  me  than  the  "Anvil  Chorus." 

1  wonder  how  my  great  trees  are  coming  on 

this  summer. 

Where  are  your  great  trees,  Sir  ? — said  the 

divinity-student 

Oh,  all  round  about  New  England.  I  call  all 
trees  mine  that  I  have  put  my  wedding-ring  on, 
and  I  have  as  many  tree-wives  as  Brigham  Young 
has  human  ones. 

One  set's  as  green  as  the  other, — exclaimed 

a  boarder,  who  has  never  been  identified. 

They're  all  Bloomers, — said  the  young  fellow 
called  John. 

[I  should  have  rebuked  this  trifling  with  language, 
if  our  landlady's  daughter  had  not  asked  me  just 
then  what  I  meant  by  putting  my  wedding-ring  on 
a  tree.] 

Why,  measuring  it  with  my  thirty-foot  tape,  my 
dear, — said  I, — I  have  worn  a  tape  almost  out  on 
the  rough  barks  of  our  old  New  England  elms  and 
other  big  trees. — Don't  you  want  to  hear  me  talk 
trees  a  little  now  ?  That  is  one  of  my  specialties. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   269 

[So  they  all  agreed  that  they  should  like  to  hear 
me  talk  about  trees.] 

I  want  you  to  understand,  in  the  first  place,  that  1 
have  a  most  intense,  passionate  fondness  for  trees  in 
general,  and  have  had  several  romantic  attachments 
to  certain  trees  in  particular.  Now,  if  you  expect 
me  to  hold  forth  in  a  "  scientific "  way  about  my 
tree-loves, — to  talk,  for  instance,  of  the  Ulmus 
Americana,  and  describe  the  ciliated  edges  of  its 
samara,  and  all  that, — you  are  an  anserine  individ- 
ual, and  I  must  refer  you  to  a  dull  friend  who  will 
discourse  to  you  of  such  matters.  What  should  you 
think  of  a  lover  who  should  describe  the  idol  of  his 
heart  in  the  language  of  science,  thus :  Class,  Mamma- 
lia ;  Order,  Primates  ;  Genus,  Homo ;  Species,  Euro- 
peus ;  Variety,  Brown ;  Individual,  Ann  Eliza ;  Dental 

.2—2     1  —  1     2—2     3  —  3 
Formula,  i ^-—^  c  j— ^  p ^—^m^—^  and  so  on ? 

No,  my  friends,  I  shall  speak  of  trees  as  we  see 
them,  love  them,  adore  them  in  the  fields,  where  they 
are  alive,  holding  their  green  sun-shades  over  our 
heads,  talking  to  us  with  their  hundred  thousand 
whispering  tongues,  looking  down  on  us  with  that 
sweet  meekness  which  belongs  to  huge,  but  limited 
organisms, — which  one  sees  in  the  brown  eyes  of 
oxen,  but  most  in  the  patient  posture,  the  out- 
stretched arms,  and  the  heavy-drooping  robes  of 
these  vast  beings  endowed  with  life,  but  not  with 
soul, — which  outgrow  us  and  outlive  us,  but  stand 


270   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

helpless, — poor  things! — while  Nature  dresses  and 
undresses  them,  like  so  many  full-sized,  but  under- 
witted  children. 

Did  you  ever  read  old  Daddy  Gilpin  ?  Slowest 
of  men,  even  of  English  men ;  yet  delicious  in  his 
slowness,  as  is  the  light  of  a  sleepy  eye  in  woman. 
1  always  supposed  "  Dr.  Syntax "  was  written  to 
make  fun  of  him.  I  have  a  whole  set  of  his  works, 
and  am  very  proud  of  it,  with  its  gray  paper,  and 
open  type,  and  long  iT,  and  orange-juice  landscapes. 
The  Pere  Gilpin  had  the  kind  of  science  I  like  in 
the  study  of  Nature, — a  little  less  observation  than 
White  of  Selborne,  but  a  little  more  poetry. — Just 
think  of  applying  the  Linnaean  system  to  an  elm! 
Who  cares  how  many  stamens  or  pistils  that  little 
brown  flower,  which  comes  out  before  the  leaf,  may 
have  to  classify  it  by  ?  What  we  want  is  the  mean- 
ing, the  character,  the  expression  of  a  tree,  as  a  kind 
and  as  an  individual. 

There  is  a  mother-idea  in  each  particular  kind  of 
tree,  which,  if  well  marked,  is  probably  embodied  in 
the  poetry  of  every  language.  Take  the  oak,  for 
instance,  and  we  find  it  always  standing  as  a  type 
of  strength  and  endurance.  I  wonder  if  you  ever 
thought  of  the  single  mark  of  supremacy  which 
distinguishes  this  tree  from  ah1  our  other  forest-trees  ? 
All  the  rest  of  them  shirk  the  work  of  resisting  grav- 
ity ;  the  oak  alone  defies  it.  It  chooses  the  horizon- 
tal direction  for  its  limbs,  so  that  then*  whole  weight 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   271 

may  tell, — and  then  stretches  them  out  fifty  or  sixty 
feet,  so  that  the  strain  may  be  mighty  enough  to  be 
worth  resisting.  You  will  find,  that,  in  passing  from 
tne  extreme  downward  droop  of  the  branches  of  the 
weeping- willow  to  the  extreme  upward  inclination 
of  those  of  the  poplar,  they  sweep  nearly  half  a  cir- 
cle. At  90°  the  oak  stops  short;  to  slant  upward 
another  degree  would  mark  infirmity  of  purpose  ;  to 
bend  downwards,  weakness  of  organization.  The 
American  elm  betrays  something  of  both ;  yet  some- 
times, as  we  shall  see,  puts  on  a  certain  resemblance 
to  its  sturdier  neighbor. 

It  won't  do  to  be  exclusive  in  our  taste  about 
trees.  There  is  hardly  one  of  them  which  has  not 
peculiar  beauties  in  some  fitting  place  for  it.  I 
remember  a  tall  poplar  of  monumental  proportions 
and  aspect,  a  vast  pillar  of  glossy  green,  placed  on 
the  summit  of  a  lofty  hill,  and  a  beacon  to  all  the 
country  round.  A  native  of  that  region  saw  fit  to 
build  his  house  very  near  it,  and,  having  a  fancy  that 
it  might  blow  down  some  time  or  other,  and  exter- 
minate himself  and  any  incidental  relatives  who 
might  be  "  stopping "  or  "  tarrying "  with  him, — 
also  laboring  under  the  delusion  that  human  life  is 
under  all  circumstances  to  be  preferred  to  vegetable 
existence, — had  the  great  poplar  cut  down.  It  is  so 
easy  to  say,  "  It  is  only  a  poplar ! "  and  so  much 
harder  to  replace  its  living  cone  than  to  build  a 
granite  obelisk  ! 


272        THE   AUTOCRAT   OF   THE   BKEAKJFAST-TABLE. 

I  must  tell  you  about  some  of  my  tree-wives.  I 
was  at  one  period  of  my  life  much  devoted  to  the 
young  lady-population  of  Rhode  Island,  a  small,  but 
delightful  State  in  the  neighborhood  of  Pawtucket. 
The  number  of  inhabitants  being  not  very  large,  I 
had  leisure,  during  my  visits  to  the  Providence  Plan- 
tations, to  inspect  the  face  of  the  country  in  the 
intervals  of  more  fascinating  studies  of  physiog- 
nomy. I  heard  some  talk  of  a  great  elm  a  short 
distance  from  the  locality  just  mentioned.  "  Let 
us  see  the  great  elm," — I  said,  and  proceeded  to 
find  it, — knowing  that  it  was  on  a  certain  farm  in 
a  place  called  Johnston,  if  I  remember  rightly.  I 
shall  never  forget  my  ride  and  my  introduction  to 
the  great  Johnston  elm. 

I  always  tremble  for  a  celebrated  tree  when  I  ap- 
proach it  for  the  first  time.  Provincialism  has  no 
scale  of  excellence  in  man  or  vegetable ;  it  never 
knows  a  first-rate  article  of  either  kind  when  it  has 
it,  and  is  constantly  taking  second  and  third  rate 
ones  for  Nature's  best.  I  have  often  fancied  the  tree 
was  afraid  of  me,  and  that  a  sort  of  shiver  came 
over  it  as  over  a  betrothed  maiden  when  she  first 
stands  before  the  unknown  to  whom  she  has  been 
plighted.  Before  the  measuring-tape  the  proudest 
tree  of  them  all  quails  and  shrinks  into  itself.  All 
those  stories  of  four  or  five  men  stretching  their  arms 
around  it  and  not  touching  each  other's  fingers,  of 
one's  pacing  the  shadow  at  noon  and  making  it  so 


THE  AUTOCBAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.        273 

many  hundred  feet,  die  upon  its  leafy  lips  in  the 
presence  of  the  awful  ribbon  which  has  strangled  so 
many  false  pretensions. 

As  I  rode  along  the  pleasant  way,  watching  eagerly 
for  the  object  of  my  journey,  the  rounded  tops  of 
the  elms  rose  from  time  to  time  at  the  road-side. 
Wherever  one  looked  taller  and  fuller  than  the  rest, 
I  asked  myself, — "  Is  this  it  ?  "  But  as  I  drew 
nearer,  they  grew  smaller, — or  it  proved,  perhaps, 
that  two  standing  in  a  line  had  looked  like  one, 
and  so  deceived  me.  At  last,  all  at  once,  when  I 
was  not  thinking  of  it, — I  declare  to  you  it  makes 
my  flesh  creep  when  I  think  of  it  now, — all  at  once 
I  saw  a  great,  green  cloud  swelling  in  the  horizon,  so 
vast,  so  symmetrical,  of  such  Olympian  majesty  and 
imperial  supremacy  arnpng  the  lesser  forest-growths, 
that  my  heart  stopped  short,  then  jumped  at  my  ribs 
as  a  hunter  springs  at  a  five-barred  gate,  and  I  felt 
all  through  me,  without  need  of  uttering  the  words, 
—"This  is  it!" 

You  will  find  this  tree  described,  with  many 
others,  in  the  excellent  Report  upon  the  Trees  and 
Shrubs  of  Massachusetts.  The  author  has  given  my 
friend  the  Professor  credit  for  some  of  his  measure- 
ments, but  measured  this  tree  himself,  carefully.  It 
is  a  grand  elm  for  size  of  trunk,  spread  of  limbs,  and 
muscular  development, — one  of  the  first,  perhaps  the 
first,  of  the  first  class  of  New  England  elms. 

The  largest  actual  girth  I  have  ever  found  at  five 
12* 


274   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

feet  from  the  ground  is  in  the  great  elm  lying  a 
stone's  throw  or  two  north  of  the  main  road  (if  my 
points  of  compass  are  right)  in  Springfield.  But 
this  has  much  the  appearance  of  having  been  formed 
by  the  union  of  two  trunks  growing  side  by  side. 

The  West- Springfield  elm  and  one  upon  North- 
ampton meadows,  belong  also  to  the  first  class  of 
trees. 

There  is  a  noble  old  wreck  of  an  elm  at  Hatfield, 
which  used  to  spread  its  daws  out  over  a  circumfer- 
ence of  thirty-five  feet  or  more  before  they  covered 
the  foot  of  its  bole  up  with  earth.  This  is  the 
American  elm  most  like  an  oak  of  any  I  have  ever 
seen. 

The  Sheffield  elm  is  equally  remarkable  for  size 
and  perfection  of  form.  I  foave  seen  nothing  that 
comes  near  it  in  Berkshire  County,  and  few  to  com- 
pare with  it  anywhere.  I  am  not  sure  that  I  remem- 
ber any  other  first-class  elms  in  New  England,  but 
there  may  be  many. 

What  makes  a  first-class  elm? — Why,  size, 

in  the  first  place,  and  chiefly.  Anything  over  twenty 
feet  of  clear  girth,  five  feet  above  the  ground,  and 
with  a  spread  of  branches  a  hundred  feet  across, 
may  claim  that  title,  according  to  my  scale.  All  of 
them,  with  the  questionable  exception  of  the  Spring- 
field tree  above  referred  to,  stop,  so  far  as  my  expe- 
rience goes,  at  about  twenty-two  or  twenty-three 
feet  of  girth  and  a  hundred  and  twenty  of  spread. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   275 

Elms  of  the  second  class,  generally  ranging  from 
fourteen  to  eighteen  feet,  are  comparatively  common. 
The  queen  of  them  all  is  that  glorious  tree  near  one 
of  the  churches  in  Springfield.  Beautiful  and  stately 
she  is  beyond  all  praise.  The  "  great  tree  "  on  Bos- 
ton Common  comes  in  the  second  rank,  as  does  the 
one  at  Cohasset,  which  used  to  have,  and  probably 
has  still,  a  head  as  round  as  an  apple-tree,  and  that 
at  Newburyport,  with  scores  of  others  which  might 
be  mentioned.  These  last  two  have  perhaps  been 
over-celebrated.  Both,  however,  are  pleasing  vege- 
tables. The  poor  old  Pittsfield  elm  lives  on  its  past 
reputation.  A  wig  of  false  leaves  is  indispensable 
to  make  it  presentable. 

[I  don't  doubt  there  may  be  some  monster-elm  or 
other,  vegetating  green,  but  inglorious,  in  some  re- 
mote New  England  village,  which  only  wants  a 
sacred  singer  to  make  it  celebrated.  Send  us  your 
measurements, — (certified  by  the  postmaster,  to 
avoid  possible  imposition,) — circumference  five  feet 
from  soil,  length  of  line  from  bough-end  to  bough- 
end,  and  we  will  see  what  can  be  done  for  you.] 

1  wish  somebody  would  get  us  up  the  follow- 
ing work : — 

SYLVA     NOVANGLICA. 

Photographs  of  New  England  Elms  and  other 
Trees,  taken  upon  the  Same  Scale  of  Magnitude. 
With  Letter- Press  Descriptions,  by  a  Distinguished 

Literary   Gentleman.      Boston : &    Co. 

185  . 


276   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

The  same  camera  should  be  used, — so  far  as  pos- 
sible,— at  a  fixed  distance.  Our  friend,  who  has 
given  us  so  many  interesting  figures  in  his  "  Trees 
of  America,"  must  not  think  this  Prospectus  invades 
his  province  ;  a  dozen  portraits,  with  lively  descrip- 
tions, would  be  a  pretty  complement  to  his  larger 
work,  which,  so  far  as  published,  I  find  excellent. 
If  my  plan  were  carried  out,  and  another  series  of  a 
dozen  English  trees  photographed  on  the  same  scale, 
the  comparison  would  be  charming. 

It  has  always  been  a  favorite  idea  of  mine  to 
bring  the  life  of  the  Old  and  the  New  World  face 
to  face,  by  an  accurate  comparison  of  their  various 
types  of  organization.  We  should  begin  with  man, 
of  course;  institute  a  large  and  exact  comparison 
between  the  development  of  la  pianta  umana,  as 
Alfieri  called  it,  in  different  sections  of  each  country, 
in  the  different  callings,  at  different  ages,  estimating 
height,  weight,  force  by  the  dynamometer  and  the 
spirometer,  and  finishing  off  with  a  series  of  typical 
photographs,  giving  the  principal  national  physiog- 
nomies. Mr.  Hutchinson  has  given  us  some  excel- 
lent English  data  to  begin  with. 

Then  I  would  follow  this  up  by  contrasting  the 
various  parallel  forms  of  life  in  the  two  continents. 
Our  naturalists  have  often  referred  to  this  inciden- 
tally or  expressly ;  but  the  animus  of  Nature  in  the 
two  half  globes  of  the  planet  is  so  momentous  a 
point  of  interest  to  our  race,  that  it  should  be  made 


V 

THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    277 

a  subject  of  express  and  elaborate  study.  Go  out 
with  me  into  that  walk  which  we  call  the  Mall,  and 
look  at  the  English  and  American  elms.  The  Amer- 
ican elm  is  tall,  graceful,  slender-sprayed,  and  droop- 
ing as  if  from  languor.  The  English  elm  is  com- 
pact, robust,  holds  its  branches  up,  and  carries  its 
leaves  for  weeks  longer  than  our  own  native  tree. 

Is  this  typical  of  the  creative  force  on  the  two 
sides  of  the  ocean,  or  not  ?  Nothing  but  a  careful 
comparison  through  the  whole  realm  of  life  can 
answer  this  question. 

There  is  a  parallelism  without  identity  in  the 
animal  and  vegetable  life  of  the  two  continents, 
which  favors  the  task  of  comparison  in  an  extraor- 
dinary manner.  Just  as  we  have  two  trees  alike  in 
many  ways,  yet  not  the  same,  both  elms,  yet  easily 
distinguishable,  just  so  we  have  a  complete  flora  and 
a  fauna,  which,  parting  from  the  same  ideal,  embody 
it  with  various  modifications.  Inventive  power  is 
the  only  quality  of  which  the  Creative  Intelligence 
seems  to  be  economical ;  just  as  with  our  largest 
human  minds,  that  is  the  divinest  of  faculties,  and 
the  one  that  most  exhausts  the  mind  which  exercises 
it.  As  the  same  patterns  have  very  commonly  been 
followed,  we  can  see  which  is  worked  out  in  the 
largest  spirit,  and  determine  the  exact  limitations 
under  which  the  Creator  places  the  movement  of 
life  in  all  its  manifestations  in  either  locality.  We 
should  find  ourselves  in  a  very  false  position,  if  it 


278   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

should  prove  that  Anglo-Saxons  can't  live  here,  but 
die  out,  if  not  kept  up  by  fresh  supplies,  as  Dr.  Knox 
and  other  more  or  less  wise  persons  have  maintained. 
It  may  turn  out  the  other  way,  as  I  have  heard  one 
of  our  literary  celebrities  argue, — and  though  I  took 
the  other  side,  I  liked  his  best, — that  the  American  is 
the  Englishman  reinforced. 

— Will  you  walk  out  and  look  at  those  elms 

with  me  after  breakfast? — I  said  to  the  school- 
mistress. 

[I  am  not  going  to  tell  lies  about  it,  and  say  that 
she  blushed, — as  I  suppose  she  ought  to  have  done, 
at  such  a  tremendous  piece  of  gallantry  as  that  was 
for  our  boarding-house.  On  the  contrary,  she  turned 
a  little  pale, — but  smiled  brightly  and  said, — Yes, 
with  pleasure,  but  she  must  walk  towards  her  school. 
— She  went  for  her  bonnet. — The  old  gentleman 
opposite  followed  her  with  his  eyes,  and  said  he 
wished  he  was  a  young  fellow.  Presently  she  came 
down,  looking  very  pretty  in  her  half-mourning  bon- 
net, and  carrying  a  school-book  in  her  hand.] 

MY  FIRST    WALK    WITH    THE    SCHOOLMISTRESS. 

This  is  the  shortest  way, — she  said,  as  we  came  to 
a  corner. — Then  we  won't  take  it, — said  I. — The 
schoolmistress  laughed  a  little,  and  said  she  was  ten 
minutes  early,  so  she  could  go  round. 

We  walked  under  Mr.  Paddock's  row  of  English 
elms.  The  gray  squirrels  were  out  looking  for  their 


> 
THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   279 

breakfasts,  and  one  of  them  came  toward  us  in  light, 
soft,  intermittent  leaps,  until  he  was  close  to  the  rail 
of  the  burial-ground.  He  was  on  a  grave  with  a 
broad  blue-slate-stone  at  its  head,  and  a  shrub  growing 
on  it.  The  stone  said  this  was  the  grave  of  a  young 
man  who  was  the  son  of  an  Honorable  gentleman, 
and  who  died  a  hundred  years  ago  and  more. — Oh, 
yes,  died, — with  a  small  triangular  mark  in  one 
breast,  and  another  smaller  opposite,  in  his  back, 
where  another  young  man's  rapier  had  slid  through 
his  body ;  and  so  he  lay  down  out  there  on  the  Com- 
mon, and  was  found  cold  the  next  morning,  with  the 
night-dews  and  the  death-dews  mingled  on  his  fore- 
head. 

Let  us  have  one  look  at  poor  Benjamin's  grave, — 
said  I. — His  bones  lie  where  his  body  was  laid  so 
long  ago,  and  where  the  stone  says  they  lie, — which 
is  more  than  can  be  said  of  most  of  the  tenants  of 
this  and  several  other  burial-grounds. 

[The  most  accursed  act  of  Vandalism  ever  com- 
mitted within  my  knowledge  was  the  uprooting  of 
the  ancient  gravestones  in  three  at  least  of  our  city 
burialgrounds,  and  one  at  least  just  outside  the  city, 
and  planting  them  in  rows  to  suit  the  taste  for  sym- 
metry of  the  perpetrators.  Many  years  ago,  when 
this  disgraceful  process  was  going  on  under  my  eyes, 
I  addressed  an  indignant  remonstrance  to  a  leading 
journal.  I  suppose  it  was  deficient  in  literary  ele- 
gance, or  too  warm  in  its  language ;  for  no  notice 


280        THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

was  taken  of  it,  and  the  hyena-horror  was  allowed 
to  complete  itself  in  the  face  of  daylight.  I  have 
never  got  over  it.  The  bones  of  my  own  ancestors, 
being  entombed,  lie  beneath  their  own  tablet;  but 
the  upright  stones  have  been  shuffled  about  like 
chessmen,  and  nothing  short  of  the  Day  of  Judgment 
will  tell  whose  dust  lies  beneath  any  of  those  records, 
meant  by  affection  to  mark  one  small  spot  as  sacred 
to  some  cherished  memory.  Shame !  shame !  shame  ! 
— that  is  all  I  can  say.  It  was  on  public  thorough- 
fares, under  the  eye  of  authority,  that  this  infamy 
was  enacted.  The  red  Indians  would  have  known 
better;  the  selectmen  of  an  African  kraal-village 
would  have  had  more  respect  for  their  ancestors.  I 
should  like  to  see  the  gravestones  which  have  been 
disturbed  all  removed,  and  the  ground  levelled,  leav- 
ing the  flat  tombstones ;  epitaphs  were  never  famous 
for  truth,  but  the  old  reproach  of  "  Here  lies  "  never 
had  such  a  wholesale  illustration  as  in  these  out- 
raged burial-places,  where  the  stone  does  lie  above, 
and  the  bones  do  not  lie  beneath.] 

Stop  before  we  turn  away,  and  breathe  a  woman's 
sigh  over  poor  Benjamin's  dust.  Love  killed  him,  I 
think.  Twenty  years  old,  and  out  there  fighting 
another  young  fellow  on  the  Common,  in  the  cool 
of  that  old  July  evening  ; — yes,  there  must  have  been 
love  at  the  bottom  of  it. 

The  schoolmistress  dropped  a  rosebud  she  had  in 
her  hand,  through  the  rails,  upon  the  grave  of  Benja- 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   ggj 

min  Woodbridge.  That  was  all  her  comment  upon 
what  I  told  her. — How  women  love  Love !  said  I ; — 
but  she  did  not  speak. 

We  came  opposite  the  head  of  a  place  or  court 
running  eastward  from  the  main  street. — Look  down 
there, — I  said, — My  friend  the  Professor  lived  in  that 
house  at  the  left  hand,  next  the  further  corner,  for 
years  and  years.  He  died  out  of  it,  the  other  day. — 
Died  ? — said  the  schoolmistress. — Certainly, — said  I. 
— We  die  out  of  houses,  just  as  we  die  out  of  our 
bodies.  A  commercial  smash  kills  a  hundred  men's 
houses  for  them,  as  a  railroad  crash  kills  their  mortal 
frames  and  drives  out  the  immortal  tenants.  Men 
sicken  of  houses  until  at  last  they  quit  them,  as  the 
soul  leaves  its  body  when  it  is  tired  of  its  infirmities. 
The  body  has  been  called  "  the  house  we  live  in  " ; 
the  house  is  quite  as  much  the  body  we  live  in. 
Shall  I  tell  you  some  things  the  Professor  said  the 
other  day  ? — Do  ! — said  the  schoolmistress. 

A  man's  body, — said  the  Professor, — is  whatever 
is  occupied  by  his  will  and  his  sensibility.  The 
small  room  down  there,  where  I  wrote  those  papers 
you  remember  reading,  was  much  more  a  portion  of 
my  body  than  a  paralytic's  senseless  and  motionless 
arm  or  leg  is  of  his. 

The  soul  of  a  man  has  a  series  of  concentric  en- 
velopes round  it,  like  the  core  of  an  onion,  or  the  in- 
nermost of  a  nest  of  boxes.  First,  he  has  his  natural 
garment  of  flesh  and  blood.  Then,  his  artificial  in- 


282   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

teguments,  with  their  true  skin  of  solid  stuffs,  their 
cuticle  of  lighter  tissues,  and  their  variously-tinted 
pigments.  Thirdly,  his  domicile,  be  it  a  single  cham- 
ber or  a  stately  mansion.  And  then,  the  whole  visi- 
ble world,  in  which  Time  buttons  him  up  as  in  a 
loose  outside  wrapper. 

You  shall  observe, — the  Professor  said, — for,  like 
Mr.  John  Hunter  and  other  great  men,  he  brings  in 
that  shall  with  great  effect  sometimes, — you  shall 
observe  that  a  man's  clothing  or  series  of  envelopes 
does  after  a  certain  time  mould  itself  upon  his  in- 
dividual nature.  We  know  this  of  our  hats,  and  are 
always  reminded  of  it  when  we  happen  to  put  them 
on  wrong  side  foremost.  We  soon  find  that  the 
beaver  is  a  hollow  cast  of  the  skull,  with  all  its 
irregular  bumps  and  depressions.  Just  so  all  that 
clothes  a  man,  even  to  the  blue  sky  which  caps  his 
head, — a  little  loosely, — shapes  itself  to  fit  each  par- 
ticular being  beneath  it.  Farmers,  sailors,  astrono- 
mers, poets,  lovers,  condemned  criminals,  all  find  it 
different,  according  to  the  eyes  with  which  they 
severally  look. 

But  our  houses  shape  themselves  palpably  on  our 
inner  and  outer  natures.  See  a  householder  breaking 
up  and  you  will  be  sure  of  it.  There  is  a  shell-fish 
which  builds  all  manner  of  smaller  shells  into  the 
walls  of  its  own.  A  house  is  never  a  home  until  wre 
have  crusted  it  with  the  spoils  of  a  hundred  lives  be- 
sides those  of  our  own  past.  See  what  these  are 
and  you  can  tell  what  the  occupant  is. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   283 

I  had  no  idea, — said  the  Professor, — until  I  pulled 
up  my  domestic  establishment  the  other  day,  what 
an  enormous  quantity  of  roots  I  had  been  making 
during  the  years  I  was  planted  there.  Why,  there 
wasn't  a  nook  or  a  corner  that  some  fibre  had  not 
worked  its  way  into ;  and  when  I  gave  the  last 
wrench,  each  of  them  seemed  to  shriek  like  a  man- 
drake, as  it  broke  its  hold  and  came  away. 

There  is  nothing  that  happens,  you  know,  which 
must  not  inevitably,  and  which  does  not  actually, 
photograph  itself  in  every  conceivable  aspect  and  in 
all  dimensions.  The  infinite  galleries  of  the  Past 
await  but  one  brief  process  and  all  their  pictures  will 
be  called  out  and  fixed  forever.  We  had  a  curious 
illustration  of  the  great  fact  on  a  very  humble  scale. 
When  a  certain  bookcase,  long  standing  in  one  place, 
for  which  it  was  built,  was  removed,  there  was 
the  exact  image  on  the  wall  of  the  whole,  and  of 
many  of  its  portions.  But  in  the  midst  of  this  pic- 
ture was  another, — the  precise  outline  of  a  map 
which  had  hung  on  the  wall  before  the  bookcase  was 
built.  We  had  all  forgotten  everything  about  the 
map  until  we  saw  its  photograph  on  the  wall. 
Then  we  remembered  it,  as  some  day  or  other  we 
may  remember  a  sin  which  has  been  built  over  and 
covered  up,  when  this  lower  universe  is  pulled  away 
from  before  the  wall  of  Infinity,  where  the  wrong- 
doing stands  self-recorded. 

The  Professor  lived  in  that  house  a  long  time, — 


284   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

not  twenty  years,  but  pretty  near  it.  When  he 
entered  that  door,  two  shadows  glided  over  the 
threshold ;  five  lingered  in  the  doorway  when  he 
passed  through  it  for  the  last  time, — and  one  of  the 
shadows  was  claimed  by  its  owner  to  be  longer  than 
his  own.  What  changes  he  saw  in  that  quiet  place ! 
Death  rained  through  every  roof  but  his ;  children 
came  into  life,  grew  to  maturity,  wedded,  faded 
away,  threw  themselves  away ;  the  whole  drama  of 
life  was  played  in  that  stock-company's  theatre  of  a 
dozen  houses,  one  of  which  was  his,  and  no  deep 
sorrow  or  severe  calamity  ever  entered  his  dwelling. 
Peace  be  to  those  walls,  forever, — the  Professor  said, 
— for  the  many  pleasant  years  he  has  passed  within 
them! 

The  Professor  has  a  friend,  now  living  at  a  dis- 
tance, who  has  been  with  him  in  many  of  his 
changes  of  place,  and  who  follows  him  in  imagina- 
tion with  tender  interest  wherever  he  goes. — In  that 
little  court,  where  he  lived  in  gay  loneliness  so 
long,— 

— in  his  autumnal  sojourn  by  the  Connecticut, 
where  it  comes  loitering  down  from  its  mountain 
fastnesses  like  a  great  lord,  swallowing  up  the  small 
proprietary  rivulets  very  quietly  as  it  goes,  until  it 
gets  proud  and  swollen  and  wantons  in  huge  luxuri- 
ous oxbows  about  the  fair  Northampton  meadows, 
and  at  last  overflows  the  oldest  inhabitant's  memory 
in  profligate  freshets  at  Hartford  and  all  along  its 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    285 

lower  shores, — up  in  that  caravansary  on  the  banks 
of  the  stream  where  Ledyard  launched  his  log  canoe, 
and  the  jovial  old  Colonel  used  to  lead  the  Com- 
mencement processions, — where  blue  Ascutney  looked 
down  from  the  far  distance,  and  the  hills  of  Beulah, 
as  the  Professor  always  called  them,  rolled  up  the 
opposite  horizon  in  soft  climbing  masses,  so  sugges- 
tive of  the  Pilgrim's  Heavenward  Path  that  he 
used  to  look  through  his  old  "  Dollond  "  to  see  if  the 
Shining  Ones  were  not  within  range  of  sight, — 
sweet  visions,  sweetest  in  those  Sunday  walks  which 
carried  them  by  the  peaceful  common,  through  the 
solemn  village  lying  in  cataleptic  stiUness  under  the 
shadow  of  the  rod  of  Moses,  to  the  terminus  of  their 
harmless  stroll, — the  patulous  fage,  in  the  Professor's 
classic  dialect, — the  spreading  beech,  in  more  familiar 
phrase, — [stop  and  breathe  here  a  moment,  for  the 
sentence  is  not  done  yet,  and  we  have  another  long 
journey  before  us,] — 

— and  again  once  more  up  among  those  other  hills 
that  shut  in  the  amber-flowing  Housatonic, — dark 
stream,  but  clear,  like  the  lucid  orbs  that  shine  be- 
neath the  lids  of  auburn-haired,  sherry-wine-eyed 
demi-blondes, — in  the  home  overlooking  the  winding 
stream  and  the  smooth,  flat  meadow ;  looked  down 
upon  by  wild  hills,  where  the  tracks  of  bears  and  cata- 
mounts may  yet  sometimes  be  seen  upon  the  winter 
snow ;  facing  the  twin  summits  which  rise  in  the  far 
North,  the  highest  waves  of  the  great  land-storm 


286        THE  AUTOCRAT  OF   THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

in  all  this  billowy  region, — suggestive  to  mad  fancies 
of  the  breasts  of  a  half-buried  Titaness,  stretched 
out  by  a  stray  thunderbolt,  and  hastily  hidden  away 
beneath  the  leaves  of  the  forest, — in  that  home  where 
seven  blessed  summers  were  passed,  which  stand  in 
memory  like  the  seven  golden  candlesticks  in  the 
beatific  vision  of  the  holy  dreamer, — 

— in  that  modest  dwelling  we  were  just  looking 
at,  not  glorious,  yet  not  unlovely  in  the  youth  of  its 
drab  and  mahogany, — full  of  great  and  little  boys' 
playthings  from  top  to  bottom, — in  all  these  summer 
or  winter  nests  he  was  always  at  home  and  always 
welcome. 

This  long  articulated  sigh  of  reminiscences, — this 
calenture  which  shows  me  the  maple-shadowed 
plains  of  Berkshire  and  the  mountain-circled  green 
of  Grafton  beneath  the  salt  waves  which  come  feel- 
ing their  way  along  the  wall  at  my  feet,  restless  and 
soft-touching  as  blind  men's  busy  fingers, — is  for 
that  friend  of  mine  who  looks  into  the  waters  of  the 
Patapsco  and  sees  beneath  them  the  same  visions 
which  paint  themselves  for  me  in  the  green  depths 
of  the  Charles. 

Did  I  talk  all  this  off  to  the  schoolmistress  ? — 

Why,  no, — of  course  not.  I  have  been  talking  with 
you,  the  reader,  for  the  last  ten  minutes.  You  don't 
think  I  should  expect  any  woman  to  listen  to  such  a 
sentence  as  that  long  one,  without  giving  her  a 
chance  to  put  in  a  word? 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OP. THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   287 

What  did  I  say  to  the  schoolmistress? — 

Permit  me  one  moment.  I  don't  doubt  your  delicacy 
and  good-breeding ;  but  in  this  particular  case,  as  I 
was  allowed  the  privilege  of  walking  alone  with  a  very 
interesting  young  woman,  you  must  allow  me  to 
remark,  in  the  classic  version  of  a  familiar  phrase, 
used  by  our  Master  Benjamin  Franklin,  it  is  nullum 
tui  negotii. 

When  the  schoolmistress  and  I  reached  the  school- 
room door,  the  damask  roses  I  spoke  of  were  so 
much  heightened  in  color  by  exercise  that  I  felt  sure 
it  would  be  useful  to  her  to  take  a  stroll  like  this 
every  morning,  and  made  up  my  mind  I  would  ask 
her  to  let  me  join  her  again. 

EXTRACT    FROM    MY    PRIVATE    JOURNAL. 

( To  be  burned  unread.) 

I  am  afraid  I  have  been  a  fool ;  for  I  have  told  as 
much  of  myself  to  this  young  person  as  if  she  were 
of  that  ripe  and  discreet  age  which  invites  confidence 
and  expansive  utterance.  I  have  been  low-spirited 
and  listless,  lately, — it  is  coffee,  I  think, — (I  observe 
that  which  is  bought  ready-ground  never  affects  the 
head,)— -and  I  notice  that  I  tell  my  secrets  too  easily 
when  I  am  downhearted. 

There  are  inscriptions  on  our  hearts,  which,  like 
that  on  Dighton  Rock,  are  never  to  be  seen  except 
at  dead-low  tide. 


288   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE, BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

There  is  a  woman's  footstep  on  the  sand  at  the 
side  of  my  deepest  ocean-buried  inscription ! 

Oh,  no,  no.  no!  a  thousand  times,  no! — Yet 

what  is  this  which  has  been  shaping  itself  in  my 
soul  ? — Is  it  a  thought  ? — is  it  a  dream  ? — is  it  &  pas- 
sion?— Then  I  know  what  comes  next. 

The  Asylum  stands  on  a  bright  and  breezy 

hill ;  those  glazed  corridors  are  pleasant  to  walk  in, 
in  bad  weather.  But  there  are  iron  bars  to  all  the  win- 
dows. When  it  is  fair,  some  of  us  can  stroll  outside 
that  very  high  fence.  But  I  never  see  much  life  in 
those  groups  I  sometimes  meet ; — and  then  the  care- 
ful man  watches  them  so  closely  !  How  I  remember 
that  sad  company  I  used  to  pass  on  fine  mornings, 
when  I  was  a  schoolboy ! — B.,  with  his  arms  full  of 
yellow  weeds, — ore  from  the  gold  mines  which  he 
discovered  long  before  we  heard  of  California, — Y., 
born  to  millions,  crazed  by  too  much  plum-cake,  (the 
boys  said.)  dogged,  explosive, — made  a  Polyphemus 
of  my  weak-eyed  schoolmaster,  by  a  vicious  flirt 
with  a  stick, — (the  multi-millionnaires  sent  him  a 
trifle,  it  was  said,  to  buy  another  eye  with  ;  but  boys 
are  jealous  of  rich  folks,  and  I  don't  doubt  the  good 
people  made  him  easy  for  life,) — how  I  remember 
them  all! 

I  recollect,  as  all  do,  the  story  of  the  Hall  of  Eblis, 
in  "  Vathek,"  and  how  each  shape,  as  it  lifted  its 
hand  from  its  breast,  showed  its  heart, — a  burning 
coal.  The  real  Hall  of  Eblis  stands  on  yonder  sum- 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   289 

mit.  Go  there  on  the  next  visiting-day,  and  ask  that 
figure  crouched  in  the  corner,  huddled  up  like  those 
Indian  mummies  and  skeletons  found  buried  in  the 
sitting  posture,  to  lift  its  hand, — look  upon  its  heart, 
and  behold,  not  fire,  but  ashes. — No,  I  must  not 
think  of  such  an  ending !  Dying  would  be  a  much 
more  gentlemanly  way  of  meeting  the  difficulty. 
Make  a  will  and  leave  her  a  house  or  two  and  some 
stocks,  and  other  little  financial  conveniences,  to  take 
away  her  necessity  for  keeping  school. — I  wonder 
what  nice  young  man's  feet  would  be  in  my  French 
slippers  before  six  months  were  over !  Well,  what 
then  ?  If  a  man  really  loves  a  woman,  of  course  he 
wouldn't  many  her  for  the  world,  if  he  were  not 
quite  sure  that  he  was  the  best  person  she  could  by 
any  possibility  marry. 

It  is  odd  enough  to  read  over  what  I  have 

just  been  writing. — It  is  the  merest  fancy  that  ever 
was  in  the  world.  I  shall  never  be  married.  She 
will ;  and  if  she  is  as  pleasant  as  she  has  been  so 
far,  I  will  give  her  a  silver  tea-set,  and  go  and  take 
tea  with  her  and  her  husband,  sometimes.  No 
coffee,  I  hope,  though, — it  depresses  me  sadly.  I 
feel  very  miserably  ; — they  must  have  been  grinding 
it  at  home. — Another  morning  walk  will  be  good  for 
me,  and  I  don't  doubt  the  schoolmistress  will  be 
glad  of  a  little  fresh  air  before  school. 


The  throbbing  flushes  of  the  poetical  inter- 

18 


290        THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

mittent  have  been  coming  over  me  from  time  to 
time  of  late.  Did  you  ever  see  that  electrical  experi- 
ment which  consists  in  passing  a  flash  through  letters 
of  gold  leaf  in  a  darkened  room,  whereupon  some 
name  or  legend  springs  out  of  the  darkness  in  char- 
acters of  fire  ? 

There  are  songs  all  written  out  in  my  soul,  which 
I  could  read,  if  the  flash  might  pass  through  them, — 
but  the  fire  must  come  down  from  heaven.  Ah ! 
but  what  if  the  stormy  nimbus  of  youthful  passion 
has  blown  by,  and  one  asks  for  lightning  from  the 
ragged  cirrus  of  dissolving  aspirations,  or  the  silvered 
cumulus  of  sluggish  satiety  ?  I  will  call  on  her 
whom  the  dead  poets  believed  in,  whom  living  ones 
no  longer  worship, — the  immortal  maid,  who,  name 
her  what  you  will, — Goddess,  Muse,  Spirit  of 
Beauty, — sits  by  the  pillow  of  every  youthful  poet, 
and  bends  over  his  pale  forehead  until  her  tresses  lie 
upon  his  cheek  and  rain  their  gold  into  his  dreams. 

MUSA. 

O  MY  lost  Beauty ! — hast  thou  folded  quite 

Thy  wings  of  morning  light 

Beyond  those  iron  gates 

Where  Life  crowds  hurrying  to  the  haggard  Fates, 
And  Age  upon  his  mound  of  ashes  waits 

To  chill  our  fiery  dreams, 
Hot  from  the  heart  of  youth  plunged  in  his  icy  streams  ? 

Leave  me  not  fading  in  these  weeds  of  care, 
Whose  flowers  are  silvered  hair  ! — 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   291 

Have  I  not  loved  thee  long, 

Though  my  young  lips  have  often  done  thee  wrong 
And  vexed  thy  heaven-tuned  ear  with  careless  song  ? 

Ah,  wilt  thou  yet  return, 
Bearing  thy  rose-hued  torch,  and  bid  thine  altar  burn  ? 

Come  to  me  ! — I  will  flood  thy  silent  shrine 

With  my  soul's  sacred  wine, 

And  heap  thy  marble  floors 

As  the  wild  spice-trees  waste  their  fragrant  stores 
In  leafy  islands  walled  with  madrepores 

And  lapped  in  Orient  seas, 
When  all  their  feathery  palms  toss,  plume-like,  in  the  breeze. 

Come  to  me  ! — thou  shalt  feed  on  honied  words, 

Sweeter  than  song  of  birds  ; — 

No  wailing  bulbul's  throat, 
No  melting  dulcimer's  melodious  note, 
When  o'er  the  midnight  wave  its  murmurs  float, 

Thy  ravished  sense  might  soothe 
With  flow  so  liquid-soft,  with  strain  sp  velvet-smooth. 

Thou  shalt  be  decked  with  jewels,  like  a  queen, 

Sought  in  those  bowers  of  green 

Where  loop  the  clustered  vines 
And  the  close-clinging  dulcamara  twines, — 
Pure  pearls  of  Maydew  where  the  moonlight  shines, 

And  Summer's  fruited  gems, 
And  coral  pendants  shorn  from  Autumn's  berried  stems. 

Sit  by  me  drifting  on  the  sleepy  waves, — 

Or  stretched  by  grass-grown  graves, 

Whose  gray,  high-shouldered  stones, 
Carved  with  old  names  Life's  time-worn  roll  disowns, 


292        THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Lean,  lichen-spotted,  o'er  the  crumbled  bones 

Still  slumbering  where  they  lay 
While  the  sad  Pilgrim  watched  to  scare  the  wolf  away ! 

Spread  o'er  my  couch  thy  visionary  wing  1 

Still  let  me  dream  and  sing, — 

Dream  of  that  winding  shore 

Where  scarlet  cardinals  bloom, — for  me  no  more, — 
The  stream  with  heaven  beneath  its  liquid  floor, 

And  clustering  nenuphars 
Sprinkling  its  mirrored  blue  like  golden-chaliced  stars  ! 

Come  while  their  balms  the  linden-blossoms  shed ! — 

Come  while  the  rose  is  red, — 

While  blue-eyed  Summer  smiles 
On  the  green  ripples  round  yon  sunken  piles 
Washed  by  the  moon-wave  warm  from  Indian  isles, 

And  on  the  sultry  air 
The  chestnuts  spread  their  palms  like  holy  men  in  prayer  I 

Oh,  for  thy  burning  lips  to  fire  my  brain 

With  thrills  of  wild  sweet  pain  ! — 

On  life's  autumnal  blast, 

Like  shrivelled  leaves,  youth's  passion-flowers  are  cast, — 
Once  loving  thee,  we  love  thee  to  the  last ! — 

Behold  thy  new-decked  shrine, 
And  hear  once  more  the  voice  that  breathed  "  Forever  thine ! 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   293 


XL 

[THE  company  looked  a  little  flustered  one  morn- 
ing when  I  came  in, — so  much  so,  that  I  inquired  of 
my  neighbor,  the  divinity-student,  what  had  been 
going  on.  It  appears  that  the  young  fellow  whom 
they  call  John  had  taken  advantage  of  my  being  a 
little  late  (I  having  been  rather  longer  than  usual 
dressing  that  morning)  to  circulate  several  questions 
involving  a  quibble  or  play  upon  words, — in  short, 
containing  that  indignity  to  the  human  understand- 
ing, condemned  in  the  passages  from  the  distin- 
guished moralist  of  the  last  century  and  the  illustri- 
ous historian  of  the  present,  which  I  cited  on  a 
former  occasion,  and  known  as  a  pun.  After  break- 
fast, one  of  the  boarders  handed  me  a  small  roll  of 
paper  containing  some  of  the  questions  and  their 
answers.  I  subjoin  two  or  three  of  them,  to  show 
what  a  tendency  there  is  to  frivolity  and  meaningless 
talk  in  young  persons  of  a  certain  sort,  when  not 
restrained  by  the  presence  of  more  reflective  natures. 
— It  was  asked,  "  Why  tertian  and  quartan  fevers 
were  like  certain  short-lived  insects."  Some  interest- 
ing physiological  relation  would  be  naturally  sug- 
gested. The  inquirer  blushes  to  find  that  the  answer 
is  in  the  paltry  equivocation,  that  they  skip  a  day  or 
two. — "  Why  an  Englishman  must  go  to  the  Conti- 


294   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

fc 

nent  to  weaken  his  grog  or  punch."  The  answer 
proves  to  have  no  relation  whatever  to  the  temper- 
ance-movement, as  no  better  reason  is  given  than  that 
island-  (or,  as  it  is  absurdly  written,  He  and)  water 
won't  mix. — But  when  I  came  to  the  next  question 
and  its  answer,  I  felt  that  patience  ceased  to  be  a 
virtue.  "  Why  an  onion  is  like  a  piano  "  is  a  query 
that  a  person  of  sensibility  would  be  slow  to  pro- 
pose ;  but  that  in  an  educated  community  an  indi- 
vidual could  be  found  to  answer  it  in  these  words, — 
"  Because  it  smell  odious,"  quasi,  it's  melodious, — is 
not  credible,  but  too  true.  I  can  show  you  the  paper. 

Dear  reader,  I  beg  your  pardon  for  repeating  such 
things.  I  know  most  conversations  reported  in  books 
are  altogether  above  such  trivial  details,  but  folly 
will  come  up  at  every  table  as  surely  as  purslain  and 
chickweed  and  sorrel  will  come  up  in  gardens.  This 
young  fellow  ought  to  have  talked  philosophy,  I 
know  perfectly  well ;  but  he  didn't, — he  made  jokes.] 

I  am  willing, — I  said, — to  exercise  your  ingenuity 
in  a  rational  and  contemplative  manner. — No,  I  do 
not  proscribe  certain  forms  of  philosophical  specula- 
tion which  involve  an  approach  to  the  absurd  or  the 
ludicrous,  such  as  you  may  find,  for  example,  in  the 
folio  of  the  Reverend  Father  Thomas  Sanchez,  in 
his  famous  Disputations,  "  De  Sancto  Matrimonio." 
I  will  therefore  turn  this  levity  of  yours  to  profit  by 
reading  you  a  rhymed  problem,  wrought  out  by  my 
friend  the  Professor. 


THE    DEACON. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.        295 

THE  DEACON'S  MASTERPIECE: 
OR  THE  WONDERFUL  "  ONE-HOSS-SHAY." 

A    LOGICAL    STORY. 

HAVE  you  heard  of  the  wonderful  one-hoss-shay, 
That  was  built  in  such  a  logical  way 
It  ran  a  hundred  years  to  a  day, 

And  then,  of  a  sudden,  it ah,  but  stay, 

I'll  tell  you  what  happened  without  delay, 
Scaring  the  parson  into  fits, 
Frightening  people  out  of  their  wits, — 
Have  you  ever  heard  of  that,  I  say  ? 

Seventeen  hundred  and  fifty-five. 
Georgius  Secundus  was  then  alive, — 
Snuffy  old  drone  from  the  German  hive  ! 
That  was  the  year  when  Lisbon-town 
Saw  the  earth  open  and  gulp  her  down, 
And  Braddock's  army  was  done  so  brown, 
Left  without  a  scalp  to  its  crown. 
It  was  on  the  terrible  Earthquake-day 
That  the  Deacon  finished  the  one-hoss-shay. 

Now  in  building  of  chaises,  I  tell  you  what, 
There  is  always  somewhere  a  weakest  spot, — 
In  hub,  tire,  felloe,  in  spring  or  thill, 
In  panel,  or  crossbar,  or  floor,  or  sill, 
In  screw,  bolt,  thoroughbrace, — lurking  still 
Find  it  somewhere  you  must  and  will, — 
Above  or  below,  or  within  or  without, — 
And  that's  the  reason,  beyond  a  doubt, 
A  chaise  breaks  down,  but  doesn't  wear  out. 


296   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

But  the  Deacon  swore  (as  Deacons  do, 
With  an  "  I  dew  vum,"  or  an  "  I  tell  yeou?} 
He  would  build  one  shay  to  beat  the  taown 
V  the  keounty  V  all  the  kentry  raoun' ; 
It  should  be  so  built  that  it  couldn'  break  daown  : 
— "  Fur,"  said  the  Deacon,  "  't's  mighty  plain 
Thut  the  weakes'  place  mus'  stan  the  strain  ; 
V  the  way  t'  fix  it,  uz  I  maintain, 

Is  only  jest 
T*  make  that  place  uz  strong  uz  the  rest." 

So  the  Deacon  inquired  of  the  village  folk 

Where  he  could  find  the  strongest  oak, 

That  couldn't  be  split  nor  bent  nor  broke, — 

That  was  for  spokes  and  floor  and  sills ; 

He  sent  for  lancewood  to  make  the  thills  ; 

The  crossbars  were  ash,  from  the  straightest  trees  ; 

The  panels  of  white-wood,  that  cuts  like  cheese, 

But  lasts  like  iron  for  things  like  these  ; 

The  hubs  of  logs  from  the  "  Settler's  ellum,"— 

Last  of  its  timber, — they  couldn't  sell  'em, 

Never  an  axe  had  seen  their  chips, 

And  the  wedges  flew  from  between  their  lips, 

Their  blunt  ends  frizzled  like  celery-tips ; 

Step  and  prop-iron,  bolt  and  screw, 

Spring,  tire,  axle,  and  linchpin  too, 

Steel  of  the  finest,  bright  and  blue  ; 

Thoroughbrace  bison-skin,  thick  and  wide  ; 

Boot,  top,  dasher,  from  tough  old  hide 

Found  in  the  pit  when  the  tanner  died. 

That  was  the  way  he  "  put  her  through." — 

"  There  ! "  said  the  Deacon,  "  naow  she'll  dew !  " 

Do  !  I  tell  you,  I  rather  guess 

She  was  a  wonder,  and  nothing  less  ! 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   297 

Colts  grew  horses,  beards  turned  gray, 
Deacon  and  deaconess  dropped  away, 
Children  and  grand-children — where  were  they  ? 
But  there  stood  the  stout  old  one-hoss-shay 
As  fresh  as  on  Lisbon-earthquake-day  ! 

EIGHTEEN  HUNDRED  ; — it  came  and  found 
The  Deacon's  Masterpiece  strong  and  sound. 
Eighteen  hundred  increased  by  ten  ; — 
"  Hahnsum  kerridge  "  they  called  it  then. 
Eighteen  hundred  and  twenty  came ; — 
Running  as  usual ;  much  the  same. 
Thirty  and  forty  at  last  arrive, 
And  then  come  fifty,  and  FIFTY-FIVE. 

Little  of  all  we  value  here 

Wakes  on  the  morn  of  its  hundredth  year 

Without  both  feeling  and  looking  queer. 

In  fact,  there's  nothing  that  keeps  its  youth, 

So  far  as  I  know,  but  a  tree  and  truth. 

(This  is  a  moral  that  runs  at  large ; 

Take  it. — You're  welcome. — No  extra  charge.) 

FIRST  OF  NOVEMBER, — the  Earthquake-day. — 
There  are  traces  of  age  in  the  one-hoss-shay, 
A  general  flavor  of  mild  decay, 
But  nothing  local,  as  one  may  say. 
There  couldn't  be, — for  the  Deacon's  art 
Had  made  it  so  like  in  every  part 
That  there  wasn't  a  chance  for  one  to  start. 
For  the  wheels  were  just  as  strong  as  the  thills, 
And  the  floor  was  just  as  strong  as  the  sills, 
And  the  panels  just  as  strong  as  the  floor, 
And  the  whippletree  neither  less  nor  more, 
13* 


298        THE  AUTOCRAT   OF   THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

And  the  back-crossbar  as  strong  as  the  fore, 
And  spring  and  axle  and  hub  encore. 
And  yet,  as  a  whole,  it  is  past  a  doubt 
In  another  hour  it  will  be  worn  out  ! 

First  of  November,  'Fifty-five  ! 

This  morning  the  parson  takes  a  drive. 

Now,  small  boys,  get  out  of  the  way  ! 

Here  comes  the  wonderful  one-horse-shay, 

Drawn  by  a  rat-tailed,  ewe-necked  bay. 

"  Huddup  ! "  said  the  parson. — Off  went  they. 

The  parson  was  working  his  Sunday's  text, — 
Had  got  tofffhly,  and  stopped  perplexed 
At  what  the — Moses — was  coming  next. 
All  at  once  the  horse  stood  still, 
Close  by  the  meet'n'-house  on  the  hill. 
— First  a  shiver,  and  then  a  thrill, 
Then  something  decidedly  like  a  spill, — 
And  the  parson  was  sitting  upon  a  rock, 
At  half-past  nine  by  the  meet'n-house  clock, — 
Just  the  hour  of  the  Earthquake  shock  ! 
— What  do  you  think  the  parson  found, 
When  he  got  up  and  stared  around  ? 
The  poor  old  chaise  in  a  heap  or  mound, 
As  if  it  had  been  to  the  mill  and  ground  ! 
You  see,  of  course,  if  you're  not  a  dunce, 
How  it  went  to  pieces  all  at  once, — 
All  at  once,  and  nothing  first, — 
Just  as  bubbles  do  when  they  burst. 

End  of  the  wonderful  one-hoss-shay. 
Logic  is  logic.     That's  all  I  say. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   299 

1  think  there  is  one  habit, — I  said  to  our  com- 
pany a  day  or  two  afterwards — worse  than  that  of 
punning.  It  is  the  gradual  substitution  of  cant  or 
flash  terms  for  words  which  truly  characterize  their 
objects.  I  have  known  several  very  genteel  idiots 
whose  whole  vocabulary  had  deliquesced  into  some 
half  dozen  expressions.  All  things  fell  into  one  of 
two  great  categories, — fast  or  slow.  Man's  chief  end 
was  to  be  a  brick.  When  the  great  calamities  of 
life  overtook  their  friends,  these  last  were  spoken  of 
as  being  a  good  deal  cut  up.  Nine-tenths  of  human 
existence  were  summed  up  in  the  single  word,  bore. 
These  expressions  come  to  be  the  algebraic  symbols 
of  minds  which  have  grown  too  weak  or  indolent  to 
discriminate.  They  are  the  blank  checks  of  intel- 
lectual bankruptcy  ; — you  may  fill  them  up  with 
what  idea  you  like ;  it  makes  no  difference,  for  there 
are  no  funds  in  the  treasury  upon  which  they  are 
drawn.  Colleges  and  good-for-nothing  smoking- 
clubs  are  the  places  where  these  conversational  fungi 
spring  up  most  luxuriantly.  Don't  think  I  under- 
value the  proper  use  and  application  of  a  cant  word 
or  phrase.  It  adds  piquancy  to  conversation,  as  a 
mushroom  does  to  a  sauce.  But  it  is  no  better  than 
a  toadstool,  odious  to  the  sense  and  poisonous  to  the 
intellect,  when  it  spawns  itself  all  over  the  talk  of 
men  and  youths  capable  of  talking,  as  it  sometimes 
does.  As  we  hear  flash  phraseology,  it  is  commonly 
the  dishwater  from  the  washings  of  English  dandy- 


300   TH^  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

ism,  school-boy  or  full-grown,  wrung  out  of  a  three- 
volume  novel  which  had  sopped  it  up,  or  decanted 
from  the  pictured  urn  of  Mr.  Verdant  Green,  and 
diluted  to  suit  the  provincial  climate. 

The  young  fellow  called  John  spoke  up  sharp- 
ly and  said,  it  was  "  rum  "  to  hear  me  "  pitchin'  into 
fellers  "  for  "  goin'  it  in  the  slang  line,"  when  I  used 
all  the  flash  words  myself  just  when  I  pleased. 

1  replied  with  my  usual  forbearance. — Cer- 
tainly, to  give  up  the  algebraic  symbol,  because  a  or 
b  is  often  a  cover  for  ideal  nihility,  would  be  unwise. 
I  have  heard  a  child  laboring  to  express  a  certain 
condition,  involving  a  hitherto  undescribed  sensation, 
(as  it  supposed,)  all  of  which  could  have  been  suffi- 
ciently explained  by  the  participle — bored.  I  have 
seen  a  country-clergyman,  with  a  one-story  intellect 
and  a  one-horse  vocabulary,  who  has  consumed  his 
valuable  time  (and  mine)  freely,  in  developing  an 
opinion  of  a  brother-minister's  discourse  which  would 
have  been  abundantly  characterized  by  a  peach- 
down-lipped  sophomore  in  the  one  word — slow.  Let 
us  discriminate,  and  be  shy  of  absolute  proscription. 
I  am  omniverbivorous  by  nature  and  training. 
Passing  by  such  words  as  are  poisonous,  I  can 
swallow  most  others,  and  chew  such  as  I  cannot 
swallow. 

Dandies  are  not  good  for  much,  but  they  are  good 
for  something.  They  invent  or  keep  in  circulation 
those  conversational  blank  checks  or  counters  just 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   3Q1 

spoken  of,  which  intellectual  capitalists  may  some- 
times find  it  worth  their  while  to  borrow  of  them. 
They  are  useful,  too,  in  keeping  up  the  standard  of 
dress,  which,  but  for  them,  would  deteriorate,  and 
become,  what  some  old  fools  would  have  it,  a  mat- 
ter of  convenience,  and  not  of  taste  and  art.  Yes, 
I  like  dandies  well  enough, — on  one  condition. 

What  is  that,  Sir? — said  the  divinity-student. 

That  they  have  pluck.  I  find  that  lies  at  the 

bottom  of  all  true  dandyism.  A  little  boy  dressed 
up  very  fine,  who  puts  his  finger  in  his  mouth  and 
takes  to  crying,  if  other  boys  make  fun  of  him,  looks 
very  silly.  But  if  he  turns  red  in  the  face  and 
knotty  in  the  fists,  and  makes  an  example  of  the 
biggest  of  his  assailants,  throwing  off  his  fine  Leg- 
horn and  his  thickly-buttoned  jacket,  if  necessary, 
to  consummate  the  act  of  justice,  his  small  toggery 
takes  on  the  splendors  of  the  crested  helmet  that 
frightened  Astyanax.  You  remember  that  the  Duke 
said  his  dandy  officers  were  his  best  officers.  The 
"  Sunday  blood,"  the  super-superb  sartorial  eques- 
trian of  our  annual  Fast-day,  is  not  imposing  or 
dangerous.  But  such  fellows  as  Brummel  and 
D'Orsay  and  Byron  are  not  to  be  snubbed  quite  so 
easily.  Look  out  for  "  la  main  de  fer  sous  le  gant 
de  velours,"  (which  I  printed  in  English  the  other 
day  without  quotation-marks,  thinking  whether  and 
scarabceus  criticus  would  add  this  to  his  globe  and 
roll  in  glory  with  it  into  the  newspapers, — which  he 


302  THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

didn't  do  it,  in  the  charming  pleonasm  of  the  Lon- 
don language,  and  therefore  I  claim  the  sole  merit 
of  exposing  the  same.)  A  good  many  powerful  and 
dangerous  people  have  had  a  decided  dash  of  dandy- 
ism about  them.  There  was  Alcibiades,  the  "  curled 
son  of  Clinias,"  an  accomplished  young  man,  but 
what  would  be  called  a  "  swell "  in  these  days. 
There  was  Aristo teles,  a  very  distinguished  writer, 
of  whom  you  have  heard, — a  philosopher,  in  short, 
whom  it  took  centuries  to  learn,  centuries  to  unlearn, 
and  is  now  going  to  take  a  generation  or  more  to 
learn  over  again.  Regular  dandy,  he  was.  So  was 
Marcus  Antonius ;  and  though  he  lost  his  game,  he 
played  for  big  stakes,  and  it  wasn't  his  dandyism 
that  spoiled  his  chance.  Petrarca  was  not  to  be 
despised  as  a  scholar  or  a  poet,  but  he  was  one  of 
the  same  sort.  So  was  Sir  Humphrey  Davy ;  so 
was  Lord  Palmerston,  formerly,  if  I  am  not  forget- 
ful. Yes, — a  dandy  is  good  for  something  as  such  ; 
and  dandies  such  as  I  was  just  speaking  of  have 
rocked  this  planet  like  a  cradle, — aye,  and  left  it 
swinging  to  this  day. — Still,  if  I  were  you,  I  wouldn't 
go  to  the  tailor's,  on  the  strength  of  these  remarks, 
and  run  up  a  long  bill  which  will  render  pockets 
a  superfluity  in  your  next  suit.  Elegans  "  nascitur, 
non  fit"  A  man  is  born  a  dandy,  as  he  is  born  a 
poet.  There  are  heads  that  can't  wear  hats  ;  there 
are  necks  that  can't  fit  cravats ;  there  are  jaws  that 
can't  fill  out  collars — (Willis  touched  this  last  point 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   303 

in  one  of  his  earlier  ambrotypes,  if  I  remember 
rightly) ;  there  are  tournures  nothing  can  humanize, 
and  movements  nothing  can  subdue  to  the  gracious 
suavity  or  elegant  languor  or  stately  serenity  which 
belong  to  different  styles  of  dandyism. 

We  are  forming  an  aristocracy,  as  you  may  ob- 
serve, in  this  country, — not  a  gratid-Dei,  nor  a  jure- 
divino  one, — but  a  de-facto  upper  stratum  of  being, 
which  floats  over  the  turbid  waves  of  common  life 
like  the  iridescent  film  you  may  have  seen  spreading 
over  the  water  about  our  wharves, — very  splendid, 
though  its  origin  may  have  been  tar,  tallow,  train-oil, 
or  other  such  unctuous  commodities.  I  say,  then, 
we  are  forming  an  aristocracy ;  and,  transitory  as  its 
individual  life  often  is,  it  maintains  itself  tolerably, 
as  a  whole.  Of  course,  money  is  its  corner-stone. 
But  now  observe  this.  Money  kept  for  two  or  three 
generations  transforms  a  race, — I  don't  mean  merely 
in  manners  and  hereditary  culture,  but  in  blood  and 
bone.  Money  buys  air  and  sunshine,  in  which  chil- 
dren grow  up  more  kindly,  of  course,  than  in  close, 
back  streets ;  it  buys  country-places  to  give  them 
happy  and  healthy  summers,  good  nursing,  good 
doctoring,  and  the  best  cuts  of  beef  and  mutton. 

When  the    spring-chickens   come  to  market 1 

beg  your  pardon, — that  is  not  what  I  was  going  to 
speak  of.  As  the  young  females  of  each  successive 
season  come  on,  the  finest  specimens  among  them, 
other  things  being  equal,  are  apt  to  attract  those  who 


304   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

can  afford  the  expensive  luxury  of  beauty.  The 
physical  character  of  the  next  generation  rises  in 
consequence.  It  is  plain  that  certain  families  have 
in  this  way  acquired  an  elevated  type  of  face  and 
figure,  and  that  in  a  small  circle  of  city-connections 
one  may  sometimes  find  models  of  both  sexes  which 
one  of  the  rural  counties  would  find  it  hard  to  match 
from  all  its  townships  put  together.  Because  there 
is  a  good  deal  of  running  down,  of  degeneration  and 
waste  of  life,  among  the  richer  classes,  you  must  not 
overlook  the  equally  obvious  fact  I  have  just  spoken 
of, — which  in  one  or  two  generations  more  will  be,  I 
think,  much  more  patent  than  just  now. 

The  weak  point  in  our  chryso-aristocracy  is  the 
same  I  have  alluded  to  in  connection  with  cheap 
dandyism.  Its  thorough  manhood,  its  high-caste 
gallantry,  are  not  so  manifest  as  the  plate-glass  of  its 
windows  and  the  more  or  less  legitimate  heraldry  of 
its  coach-panels.  It  is  very  curious  to  observe  of 
how  small  account  military  folks  are  held  among  our 
Northern  people.  Our  young  men  must  gild  their 
spurs,  but  they  need  not  win  them.  The  equal 
division  of  property  keeps  the  younger  sons  of  rich 
people  above  the  necessity  of  military  service.  Thus 
the  army  loses  an  element  of  refinement,  and  the 
moneyed  upper  class  forgets  what  it  is  to  count 
heroism  among  its  virtues.  Still  I  don't  believe 
in  any  aristocracy  without  pluck  as  its  backbone. 
Ours  may  show  it  when  the  time  comes,  if  it  ever 
does  come. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BKEAKFAST-TABLE.   3Q5 

These    United    States   furnish   the    greatest 

market  for  intellectual  green  fruit  of  all  the  places  in 
the  world.  I  think  so,  at  any  rate.  The  demand  for 
intellectual  labor  is  so  enormous  and  the  market  so 
far  from  nice,  that  young  talent  is  apt  to  fare  like 
unripe  gooseberries, — get  plucked  to  make  a  fool  of. 
Think  of  a  country  which  buys  eighty  thousand 
copies  of  the  "  Proverbial  Philosophy,"  while  the 
author's  admiring  countrymen  have  been  buying 
twelve  thousand!  How  can  one  let  his  fruit  hang 
in  the  sun  until  it  gets  fully  ripe,  while  there  are 
eighty  thousand  such  hungry  mouths  ready  to  swal- 
low it  and  proclaim  its  praises?  Consequently,  there 
never  was  such  a  collection  of  crude  pippins  and 
half-grown  windfalls  as  our  native  literature  displays 
among  its  fruits.  There  are  literary  green-groceries 
at  every  corner,  which  will  buy  anything,  from  a 
button-pear  to  a  pine-apple.  It  takes  a  long  appren- 
ticeship to  train  a  whole  people  to  reading  and  writ- 
ing. The  temptation  of  money  and  fame  is  too 
great  for  yeung  people.  Do  I  not  remember  that 

glorious  moment  when  the  late  Mr. we  won't 

say  who, — editor  of  the we  won't   say  what, 

offered  me  the  sum  of  fifty  cents  per  double- 
columned  quarto  page  for  shaking  my  young  boughs 
over  his  foolscap  apron?  Was  it  not  an  intoxicat- 
ing vision  of  gold  and  glory?  I  should  doubtless 
have  revelled  in  its  wealth  and  splendor,  but  for 
earning  that  the  fifty  cents  was  to  be  considered  a 


306   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

rhetorical  embellishment,  and  by  no  means  a  literal 
expression  of  past  fact  or  present  intention. 

Beware  of  making  your  moral  staple  consist 

of  the  negative  virtues.  It  is  good  to  abstain,  and 
teach  others  to  abstain,  from  all  that  is  sinful  or  hurt- 
ful. But  making  a  business  of  it  leads  to  emacia- 
tion of  character,  unless  one  feeds  largely  also  on 
the  more  nutritious  diet  of  active  sympathetic  ben- 
evolence. 

I  don't  believe  one  word  of  what  you  are 

saying, — spoke  up  the  angular  female  in  black  bom- 
bazine. 

I  am  sorry  you  disbelieve  it,  Madam, — I  said, 
and  added  softly  to  my  next  neighbor, — but  you 
prove  it. 

The  young  fellow  sitting  near  me  winked ;  and 
the  divinity-student  said,  in  an  undertone, —  Optime 
dictum. 

Your  talking  Latin, — said  I, — reminds  me  of  an 
odd  trick  of  one  of  my  old  tutors.  He  read  so 
much  of  that  language,  that  his  English  half  turned 
into  it.  He  got  caught  in  town,  one  hot  summer,  in 
pretty  close  quarters,  and  wrote,  or  began  to  write,  a 
series  of  city  pastorals.  Eclogues  he  called  them, 
and  meant  to  have  published  them  by  subscription. 
1  remember  some  of  his  verses,  if  you  want  to  hear 
them. — You,  Sir,  (addressing  myself  to  the  divinity- 
student,)  and  all  such  as  have  been  through  college, 
or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  received  an  honorary 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   gQ7 

degree,  will  understand  them  without  a  dictionary 
The  old  man  had  a  great  deal  to  say  about  "  aestiva- 
tion," as  he  called  it,  in  opposition,  as  one  might 
say,  to  hibernation.  Intramural  aestivation,  or  town- 
life  in  summer,  he  would  say,  is  a  peculiar  form  of 
suspended  existence,  or  semi-asphyxia.  One  wakes 
up  from  it  about  the  beginning  of  the  last  week 
in  September.  This  is  what  I  remember  of  his 
poem : — 

ESTIVATION. 

An  Unpublished  Poem,  by  my  late  Latin  Tutor. 

IN  candent  ire  the  solar  splendor  flames  ; 
The  foles,  languescent,  pend  from  arid  rames ; 
His  humid  front  the  cive,  anheling,  wipes, 
And  dreams  of  erring  on  ventiferous  ripes. 

How  dulce  to  vive  occult  to  mortal  eyes, 
Dorm  on  the  herb  with  none  to  supervise, 
Carp  the  suave  berries  from  the  crescent  vine, 
And  bibe  the  flow  from  longicaudate  kine  ! 

To  me,  alas  !  no  verdurous  visions  come, 
Save  yon  exiguous  pool's  conferva-scum, — 
No  concave  vast  repeats  the  tender  hue 
That  laves  my  milk-jug  with  celestial  blue  ! 

Me  wretched  !     Let  me  curr  to  quercine  shades  I 
Effund  your  albid  hausts,  lactiferous  maids ! 
Oh,  might  I  vole  to  some  umbrageous  clump, — 
Depart, — be  off, — excede, — evade, — erump ! 


308       THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

I  have  lived   by   the   sea-shore   and  by  the 

mountains. — No,  I  am  not  going  to  say  which  is 
best.  The  one  where  your  place  is  is  ,the  best  for 
you.  But  this  difference  there  is :  you  can  domesti- 
cate mountains,  but  the  sea  is  ferce  natures.  You 
may  have  a  hut,  oy  know  the  owner  of  one,  on  the 
mountain-side ;  you  see  a  light  half-way  up  its  as- 
cent in  the  evening,  and  you  know  there  is  a  home, 
and  you  might  share  it.  You  have  noted  certain 
trees,  perhaps  ;  you  know  the  particular  zone  where 
the  hemlocks  look  so  black  in  October,  when  the 
maples  and  beeches  have  faded.  All  its  reliefs  and 
intaglios  have  electrotyped  themselves  in  the  medal- 
lions that  hang  round  the  walls  of  your  memory's 
chamber. — The  sea  remembers  nothing.  It  is  feline. 
It  licks  your  feet, — its  huge  flanks  purr  very  plea- 
santly for  you ;  but  it  will  crack  your  bones  and  eat 
you,  for  all  that,  and  wipe  the  crimsoned  foam  from 
its  jaws  as  if  nothing  had  happened.  The  moun- 
tains give  their  lost  children  berries  and  water ;  the 
sea  mocks  their  thirst  and  lets  them  die.  The  moun- 
tains have  a  grand,  stupid,  lovable  tranquillity ;  the 
sea  has  a  fascinating,  treacherous  intelligence.  The 
mountains  lie  about  like  huge  ruminants,  their  broad 
backs  awful  to  look  upon,  but  safe  to  handle.  The 
sea  smooths  its  silver  scales  until  you  cannot  see 
their  joints, — but  their  shining  is  that  of  a  snake's 
belly,  after  all. — In  deeper  suggestiveness  I  find  as 
great  a  difference.  The  mountains  dwarf  mankind 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   309 

and  foreshorten  the  procession  of  its  long  genera- 
tions. The  sea  drowns  out  humanity  and  time ;  it 
has  no  sympathy  with  either ;  for  it  belongs  to  eter- 
nity, and  of  that  it  sings  its  monotonous  song  for- 
ever and  ever. 

Yet  I  should  love  to  have  a  little  box  by  the  sea- 
shore. I  should  love  to  gaze  out  on  the  wild  feline 
element  from  a  front  window  of  my  own,  just  as  I 
should  love  to  look  on  a  caged  panther,  and  see  it 
stretch  its  shining  length,  and  then  curl  over  and  lap 
its  smooth  sides,  and  by-and-by  begin  to  lash  itself 
into  rage  and  show  its  white  teeth  and  spring  at  its 
bars,  and  howl  the  cry  of  its  mad,  but,  to  me,  harm- 
less fury. — And  then, — to  look  at  it  with  that  inward 
eye, — who  does  not  love  to  shuffle  off  time  and  its 
concerns,  at  intervals, — to  forget  who  is  President 
and  who  .is  Governor,  what  race  he  belongs  to,  what 
language  he  speaks,  which  golden-headed  nail  of  the 
firmament  his  particular  planetary  system  is  huug 
upon,  and  listen  to  the  great  liquid  metronome  as  it 
beats  its  solemn  measure,  steadily  swinging  when 
the  solo  or  duet  of  human  life  began,  and  to  swing 
just  as  steadily  after  the  human  chorus  has  died  out 
and  man  is  a  fossil  on  its  shores  ? 

What  should  decide  one,  in  choosing  a  sum- 
mer residence  ? — Constitution,  first  of  all.  How  much 
snow  could  you  melt  in  an  hour,  if  you  were  planted 
in  a  hogshead  of  it?  Comfort  is  essential  to  enjoy- 
ment. All  sensitive  people  should  remember  that 


310   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

persons  in  easy  circumstances  suffer  much  more  from 
cold  in  summer — that  is,  the  warm  half  of  the  year 
— than  in  winter,  or  the  other  half.  You  must  cut 
your  climate  to  your  constitution,  as  much  as  your 
clothing  to  your  shape.  After  this,  consult  your  taste 
and  convenience.  But  if  you  would  be  happy  in 
Berkshire,  you  must  carry  mountains  in  your  brain  ; 
and  if  you  would  enjoy  Nahant,  you  must  have  an 
ocean  in  your  soul.  Nature  plays  at  dominos  with 
you;  you  must  match  her  piece,  or  she  will  never 
give  it  up  to  you. 

The  schoolmistress  said,  in  a  rather  mischiev- 
ous way,  that  she  was  afraid  some  minds  or  souls 
would  be  a  little  crowded,  if  they  took  in  the  Rocky 
Mountains  or  the  Atlantic. 

Have  you  ever  read  the  little  book  called  "  The 
Stars  and  the  Earth  ?  " — said  I. — Have  you  seen  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  photographed  in  a  sur- 
face that  a  fly's  foot  would  cover  ?  The  forms  or 
conditions  of  Time  and  Space,  as  Kant  will  tell  you, 
are  nothing  in  themselves, — only  our  way  of  looking 
at  things.  You  are  right,  I  think,  however,  in  recog- 
nizing the  category  of  Space  as  being  quite  as  appli- 
cable to  minds  as  to  the  outer  world.  Every  man 
of  reflection  is  vaguely  conscious  of  an  imperfectly- 
defined  circle  which  is  drawn  about  his  intellect.  He 
has  a  perfectly  clear  sense  that  the  fragments  of  his 
intellectual  circle  include  the  curves  of  many  other 
minds  of  which  he  is  cognizant.  He  often  recognizes 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   31 1 

these  as  manifestly  concentric  with  his  own,  but  of 
less  radius.  On  the  other  hand,  when  we  find  a 
portion  of  an  arc  on  the  outside  of  our  own,  we  say 
it  intersects  ours,  but  are  very  slow  to  confess  or  to 
see  that  it  circumscribes  it.  Every  now  and  then  a 
man's  mind  is  stretched  by  a  new  idea  or  sensation, 
and  never  shrinks  back  to  its  former  dimensions. 
After  looking  at  the  Alps,  I  felt  that  my  mind  had 
been  stretched  beyond  the  limits  of  its  elasticity,  and 
fitted  so  loosely  on  my  old  ideas  of  space  that  I  had 
to  spread  these  to  fit  it. 

If  I  thought  I  should  ever  see  the  Alps ! — 

said  the  schoolmistress. 

Perhaps  you  will,  some  time  or  other, — I  said. 

It  is  not  very  likely, — she  answered. — I  have  had 
one  or  two  opportunities,  but  I  had  rather  be  any- 
thing than  governess  in  a  rich  family. 

[Proud,  too,  you  little  soft-voiced  woman !  Well, 
I  can't  say  I  like  you  any  the  worse  for  it.  How 
long  will  school-keeping  take  to  kill  you  ?  Is  it  pos- 
sible the  poor  thing  works  with  her  needle,  too  ?  I 
don't  like  those  marks  on  T;he  side  of  her  forefinger. 

Tableau.  Chamouni.  Mont  Blanc  in  full  view. 
Figures  in  the  foreground ;  two  of  them  standing 

apart ;  one  of  them  a  gentleman  of oh, — ah, — 

yes !  the  other  a  lady  in  a  white  cashmere,  leaning 
on  his  shoulder. — The  ingenuous  reader  will  under- 
stand that  this  was  an  internal,  private,  personal, 
subjective  diorama,  ^een  for  one  instant  on  the  back- 


312   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

ground  of  my  own  consciousness,  and  abolished  into 
black  nonentity  by  the  first  question  which  recalled 
me  to  actual  life,  as  suddenly  as  if  one  of  those  iron 
shop-blinds  (which  I  always  pass  at  dusk  with  a 
shiver,  expecting  to  stumble  over  some  poor  but 
honest  shop-boy's  head,  just  taken  off  by  its  sudden 
and  unexpected  descent,  and  left  outside  upon  the 
sidewalk)  had  come  down  in  front  of  it  "  by  the 
run."] 

Should    you    like   to    hear   what   moderate 

wishes  life  brings  one  to  at  last  ?  I  used  to  be  very 
ambitious, — wasteful,  extravagant,  and  luxurious  in 
all  my  fancies.  Read  too  much  in  the  "  Arabian 
Nights."  Must  have  the  lamp, — couldn't  do  without 
the  ring.  Exercise  every  morning  on  the  brazen 
horse.  Plump  down  into  castles  as  full  of  little 
milk-white  princesses  as  a  nest  is  of  young  sparrows. 
All  love  me  dearly  at  once. — Charming  idea  of  Me, 
but  too  high-colored  for  the  reality.  I  have  out- 
grown all  this ;  my  tastes  have  become  exceedingly 
primitive, — almost,  perhaps,  ascetic.  We  carry  hap- 
piness into  our  condition,  Cut  must  not  hope  to  find 
it  there.  I  think  you  will  be  willing  to  hear  some 
lines  which  embody  the  subdued  and  limited  desires 
of  my  maturity. 

CONTENTMENT. 
"  Man  wants  but  little  here  below." 

LITTLE  I  ask  ;  my  wants  are  few  ; 
I  only  wish  a  hut  of  stone, 


THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BBEAKF AST-TABLE.       313 

(A  very  plain  brown  stone  will  do,) 
That  I  may  call  my  own  ; — 
And  close  at  hand  is  such  a  one, 
In  yonder  street  that  fronts  the  sun. 

Plain  food  is  quite  enough  for  me  ; 

Three  courses  are  as  good  as  ten ; — 
If  Nature  can  subsist  on  three, 

Thank  Heaven  for  three.     Amen ! 
I  always  thought  cold  victual  nice  ; — 
My  choice  would  be  vanilla-ice. 

I  care  not  much  for  gold  or  land  ; — 

Give  me  a  mortgage  here  and  there, — 
Some  good  bank-stock, — some  note  of  hand, 

Or  trifling  railroad  share ; — 
I  only  ask  that  Fortune  send 
A  little  more  than  I  shall  spend. 

Honors  are  silly  toys,  I  know, 

And  titles  are  but  empty  names ; — 
I  would,  perhaps,  be  Plenipo, — 

But  only  near  St-  James ; — 
I'm  very  sure  I  should  not  care 
To  fill  our  Gubernator's  chair. 

Jewels  are  baubles ;  'tis  a  sin 

To  care  for  such  unfruitful  things  ; — 
One  good-sized  diamond  in  a  pin, — 
Some,  not  so  large,  in  rings, — • 
A  ruby,  and  a  pearl,  or  so, . 
Will  do  for  me  ; — I  laugh  at  show. 

My  dame  should  dress  in  cheap  attire ; 
(Good,  heavy  silks  are  never  dear ;) — 
14 


314   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

I  own  perhaps  I  might  desire 

Some  shawls  of  true  cashmere,— 
Some  marrowy  crapes  of  China  silk, 
Like  wrinkled  skins  on  scalded  milk. 

I  would  not  have  the  horse  I  drive 

So  fast  that  folks  must  stop  and  stare  ; 
An  easy  gait — two,  forty-five — 

Suits  me  ;  I  do  not  care  ; — 
Perhaps,  for  just  a  single  spurt, 
Some  seconds  less  would  do  no  hurt. 

Of  pictures,  I  should  like  to  own 

Titians  and  Raphaels  three  or  four, — 
I  love  so  much  their  style  and  tone, — 

One  Turner,  and  no  more, — 
(A  landscape, — foreground  golden  dirt ; 
The  sunshine  painted  with  a  squirt.) 

Of  books  but  few, — some  fifty  score 

For  daily  use,  and  bound  for  wear ; 
The  rest  upon  an  upper  floor ; — 

Some  little  luxury  there 
Of  red  morocco's  gilded  gleam, 
And  vellum  rich  as  country  cream. 

Busts,  cameos,  gems, — such  things  as  these, 

Which  others  often  show  for  pride, 
I  value  for  their  power  to  please, 

'  And  selfish  churls  deride  ; — 
One  Stradivarius,  I  confess, 
Two  Meerschaums,  I  would  fain  possess. 

Wealth's  wasteful  tricks  I  will  not  learn, 
Nor  ape  the  glittering  upstart  fool ; — 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   315 

Shall  not  carved  tables  serve  my  turn, 

But  all  must  be  of  buhl  ? 
Give  grasping  pomp  its  double  share, — 
I  ask  but  one  recumbent  chair. 

Thus  humble  let  me  live  and  die, 

Nor  long  for  Midas'  golden  touch, 
If  Heaven  more  generous  gifts  deny, 

I  shall  not  miss  them  much, — 
Too  grateful  for  the  blessing  lent 
Of  simple  tastes  and  mind  content ! 

MY  LAST   WALK   WITH   THE   SCHOOLMISTRESS. 

(A.  Parenthesis.} 

I  can't  say  just  how  many  walks  she  and  I  had 
taken  together  before  this  one.  I  found  the  effect  of 
going  out  every  morning  was  decidedly  favorable  on 
her  health.  Two  pleasing  dimples,  the  places  for 
which  were  just  marked  when  she  came,  played, 
shadowy,  in  her  freshening  cheeks  when  she  smiled 
and  nodded  good-morning  to  me  from  the  school- 
house-steps. 

I  am  afraid  I  did  the  greater  part  of  the  talking. 
At  any  rate,  if  I  should  try  to  report  all  that  I  said 
during  the  first  half-dozen  walks  we  took  together,  I 
fear  that  I  might  receive  a  gentle  hint  from  my 
friends  the  publishers,  that  a  separate  volume,  at  my 
own  risk  and  expense,  would  be  the  proper  method 
of  bringing  them  before  the  public. 

— —  I  would  have  a  woman  as  true  as  Death. 


316        THE  AUTOCRAT   OF   THE   BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

At  the  first  real  lie  which  works  from  the  heart  out- 
ward, she   should  be  tenderly  chloroformed   into  a 
better  world,  where    she   can    have  an   angel  for  a 
governess,    and   feed   on    strange   fruits  which  will 
make  her  all  over  again,  even  to  her  bones  and  mar- 
row.— Whether  gifted  with  the  accident  of  beauty 
or  not,  she  should  have  been  moulded  in  the  rose-red 
clay  of  Love,  before  the  breath  of  life  made  a  mov- 
ing mortal  of  her.     Love-capacity  is   a   congenital 
endowment ;  and  I  think,  after  a  while,  one  gets  to 
know  the  warm-hued  natures  it  belongs  to  from  the 
pretty   pipe-clay   counterfeits   of  them. — Proud   she 
may  be,  in  the  sense  of  respecting  herself ;  but  pride, 
in  the  sense  of  contemning  others  less  gifted  than 
herself,  deserves  the  two  lowest  circles  of  a  vulgar 
woman's  Inferno,  where  the  punishments  are  Small- 
pox and  Bankruptcy. — She  who  nips  off  the  end  of 
a  brittle  courtesy,  as  one  breaks  the  tip  of  an  icicle, 
to  bestow  upon  those  whom  she  ought  cordially  and 
kindly  to  recognize,  proclaims  the  fact  that  she  comes 
not   merely  of  low  blood,  but  of  bad   blood.     Con- 
sciousness of  unquestioned   position    makes   people 
gracious  in  proper  measure  to  all ;  but  if  a  woman 
puts  on  airs  with  her  real  equals,  she  has  something 
about  herself  or  her  family  she   is  ashamed  of,  or 
ought  to  be.     Middle,  and  more  than  middle-aged 
people,  who   know   family    histories,   generally   see 
through  it.     An  official  of  standing  was  rude  to  me 
once.     Oh,  that  is  the  maternal  grandfather, — s-aid  a 


THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE   BREAKFAST-TABLE.        317 

wise  old  friend  to  me, — he  was  a  boor. — Better  too 
few  words,  from  the  woman  we  love,  than  too 
many:  while  she  is  silent,  Nature  is  working  for  her; 
while  she  talks,  she  is  working  for  herself. — Love  is 
sparingly  soluble  in  the  words  of  men ;  therefore  they 
speak  much  of  it;  but  one  syllable  of  woman's 
speech  can  dissolve  more  of  it  than  a  man's  heart 
can  hold. 

"Whether  I  said  any  or  all  of  these  things 

to  the  schoolmistress,  or  not, — whether  I  stole  them 
out  of  Lord  Bacon, — whether  I  cribbed  them  from 
Balzac, — whether  I  dipped  them  from  the  ocean  of 
Tupperian  wisdom, — or  whether  I  have  just  found 
them  in  my  head,  laid  there  by  that  solemn-  fowl, 
Experience,  (who,  according  to  my  observation, 
cackles  oftener  than  she  drops  real  live  eggs,)  I  can- 
not say.  Wise  men  have  said  more  foolish  things, 
— and  foolish  men,  I  don't  doubt,  have  said  as  wise 
things.  Anyhow,  the  schoolmistress  and  I  had  pleas- 
ant walks  and  long  talks,  all  of  which  I  do  not  feel 
bound  to  report. 

You  are  a  stranger  to  me,  Ma'am. — I  don't 

doubt  you  would  like  to  know  all  I  said  to  the 
schoolmistress. — I  sha'n't  do  it ; — I  had  rather  get 
the  publishers  to  return  the  money  you  have  invested 
in  this.  Besides,  I  have  forgotten  a  good  deal  of  it. 
I  shall  tell  only  what  I  like  of  what  I  remember. 

My  idea  was,  in  the  first  place,  to  search  out 

the  picturesque  spots  which  the  city  affords  a  sight 


318   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

of,  to  those  who  have  eyes.  I  know  a  good  many, 
and  it  was  a  pleasure  to  look  at  them  in  company 
with  my  young  friend.  There  were  the  shrubs  and 
flowers  in  the  Franklin-Place  front-yards  or  borders ; 
Commerce  is  just  putting  his  granite  foot  upon  them. 
Then  there  are  certain  small  seraglio-gardens,  into 
which  one  can  get  a  peep  through  the  crevices  of 
high  fences, — one  in  Myrtle  Street,  or  backing  on  it, 
— here  and  there  one  at  the  North  and  South  Ends. 
Then  the  great  elms  in  Essex  Street.  Then  the 
stately  horse-chestnuts  in  that  vacant  lot  in  Chambers 
Street,  which  hold  their  outspread  hands  over  your 
head,  (as  I  said  in  my  poem  the  other  day,)  and  look 
as  if  they  were  whispering,  "  May  grace,  mercy,  and 
peace  be  with  you !  "—and  the  rest  of  that  benedic- 
tion. Nay,  there  are  certain  patches  of  ground, 
which,  having  lain  neglected  for  a  time,  Nature,  who 
always  has  her  pockets  full  of  seeds,  and  holes  in 
all  her  pockets,  has  covered  with  hungry  plebeian 
growths,  which  fight  for  life  with  each  other,  until 
some  of  them  get  broad-leaved  and  succulent,  and 
you  have  a  coarse  vegetable  tapestry  which  Raphael 
would  not  have  disdained  to  spread  over  the  fore- 
ground of  his  masterpiece.  The  Professor  pretends 
that  he  found  such  a  one  in  Charles  Street,  which, 
in  its  dare-devil  impudence  of  rough-and-tumble 
vegetation,  beat  the  pretty-behaved  flower-beds  of 
the  Public  Garden  as  ignominiously  as  a  group  of 
young  tatterdemalions  playing  pitch-and-toss  beats  a 


THE  AUTOCKAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   319 

row  of  Sunday-school-boys  with  their  teacher  at 
their  head. 

But  then  the  Professor  has  one  of  his  burrows  in 
that  region,  and  puts  everything  in  high  colors  relat- 
ing to  it.  That  is  his  way  about  everything. 

I  hold  any  man  cheap, — he  said, — of  whom  nothing 
stronger  can  be  uttered  than  that  all  his  geese  are 

swans. How  is  that,  Professor  ? — said  I ; — I 

should  have  set  you  down  for  one  of  that  sort. 

Sir, — said  he, — I  am  proud  to  say,  that  Nature  has 
so  far  enriched  me,  that  I  cannot  own  so  much  as  a 
duck  without  seeing  in  it  as  pretty  a  swan  as  ever 
swam  the  basin  in  the  garden  of  the  Luxembourg. 
And  the  Professor  showed  the  whites  of  his  eyes 
devoutly,  like  one  returning  thanks  after  a  dinner  of 
many  courses. 

I  don't  know  anything  sweeter  than  this  leaking 
in  of  Nature  through  all  the  cracks  in  the  walls  and 
floors  of  cities.  You  heap  up  a  million  tons  of 
hewn  rocks  on  a  square  mile  or  two  of  earth  which 
was  green  once.  The  trees  look  down  from  the 
hill-sides  and  ask  each  other,  as  they  stand  on  tiptoe, 
— "  What  are  these  people  about  ?  "  And  the  small 
herbs  at  their  feet  look  up  and  whisper  back, — "  We 
will  go  and  see."  So  the  small  herbs  pack  them- 
selves up  in  the  least  possible  bundles,  and  wait 
until  the  wind  steals  to  them  at  night  and  whispers, 
— "  Come  with  me."  Then  they  go  softly  with  it 
into  the  great  city, — one  to  a  cleft  in  the  pavement, 


320   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

one  to  a  spout  on  the  roof,  one  to  a  seam  in  the 
marbles  over  a  rich  gentleman's  bones,  and  one  to 
the  grave  without  a  stone  where  nothing  but  a  man 
is  buried, — and  there  they  grow,  looking  down  on 
the  generations  of  men  from  mouldy  roofs,  looking 
up  from  between  the  less-trodden  pavements,  looking 
out  through  iron  cemetery-railings.  Listen  to  them, 
when  there  is  only  a  light  breath  stirring,  and  you 
will  hear  them  saying  to  each  other, — "  Wait  awhile!" 
The  words  run  along  the  telegraph  of  those  narrow 
green  lines  that  border  the  roads  leading  from  the 
city,  until  they  reach  the  slope  of  the  hills,  and  the 
trees  repeat  in  low  murmurs  to  each  other, — "  Wait 
awhile ! "  By-and-by  the  flow  of  life  in  the  streets 
ebbs,  and  the  old  leafy  inhabitants — the  smaller 
tribes  always  in  front — saunter  in,  one  by  one,  very 
careless  seemingly,  but  very  tenacious,  until  they 
swarm  so  that  the  great  stones  gape  from  each  other 
with  the  crowding  of  their  roots,  and  the  feldspar 
begins  to  be  picked  out  of  the  granite  to  find  them 
food.  At  last  the  trees  take  up  their  solemn  line  of 
march,  and  never  rest  until  they  have  encamped  in 
the  market-place.  Wait  long  enough  and  you  will 
find  an  old  doting  oak  hugging  a  huge  worn  block 
in  its  yellow  underground  arms ;  that  was  the  corner- 
stone of  the  State-House.  Oh,  so  patient  she  is,  this 
imperturbable  Nature ! 

Let  us  cry ! 

But  all  this  has  nothing  to  do  with  my  walks  and 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.        321 

talks  with  the  schoolmistress.  I  did  not  say  that  I 
would  not  tell  you  something  about  them.  Let  me 
alone,  and  I  shall  talk  to  you  more  than  I  ought  to, 
probably.  We  never  tell  our  secrets  to  people  that 
purnp  for  them. 

Books  we  talked  about,  and  education.  It  was  her 
duty  to  know  something  of  these,  and  of  course  she 
did.  Perhaps  I  was  somewhat  more  learned  than 
she,  but  I  found  that  the  difference  between  her 
reading  and  mine  was  like  that  of  a  man's  and  a 
woman's  dusting  a  library.  The  man  flaps  about 
with  a  bunch  of  feathers  ;  the  woman  goes  to  work 
softly  with  a  cloth.  She  does  not  raise  half  the  dust, 
nor  fill  her  own  eyes  and  mouth  with  it, — but  she 
goes  into  all  the  corners,  and  attends  to  the  leaves 
as  much  as  the  covers. — Books  are  the  negative  pic- 
tures of  thought,  and  the  more  sensitive  the  mind 
that  receives  their  images,  the  more  nicely  the  finest 
lines  are  reproduced.  A  wom-an,  (of  the  right  kind,) 
reading  after  a  man,  follows  him  as  Ruth  followed 
the  reapers  of  Boaz,  and  her  gleanings  are  often  the 
finest  of  the  wheat. 

But  it  was  in  talking  of  Life  that  we  came  most 
nearly  together.  I  thought  I  knew  something  about 
that, — that  I  could  speak  or  write  about  it  somewhat 
to  the  purpose. 

To  take  up*  this  fluid  earthly  being  of  ours  as  a 
sponge  sucks  up  water, — to  be  steeped  and  soaked 
in  its  realities  as  a  hide  fills  its  pores  lying  seven 


322        THE   AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

years  in  a  tan-pit, — to  have  winnowed  every  wave 
of  it  as  a  mill-wheel  works  up  the  stream  that  runs 
through  the  flume  upon  its  float-boards, — to  have 
curled  up  in  the  keenest  spasms  and  flattened  out  in 
the  laxest  languors  of  this  breathing-sickness,  which 
keeps  certain  parcels  of  matter  uneasy  for  three  or 
four  score  years, — to  have  fought  all  the  devils  and 
clasped  all  the  angels  of  its  delirium, — and  then,  just 
at  the  point  when  the  white-hot  passions  have  cooled 
down  to  cherry-red,  plunge  our  experience  into  the 
ice-cold  stream  of  some  human  language  or  other, 
one  might  think  would  end  in  a  rhapsody  with 
something  of  spring  and  temper  in  it.  All  this  I 
thought  my  power  and  province. 

The  schoolmistress  had  tried  life,  too.  Once  in  a 
while  one  meets  with  a  single  soul  greater  than  all 
the  living  pageant  which  passes  before  it.  As  the  pale 
astronomer  sits  in  his  study  with  sunken  eyes  and 
thin  fingers,  and  weighs  Uranus  or  Neptune  as  in  a 
balance,  so  there  are  meek,  slight  women  who  have 
weighed  all  which  this  planetary  life  can  offer,  and 
hold  it  like  a  bauble  in  the  palm  of  their  slender 
hands.  This  was  one  of  them.  Fortune  had  left 
her,  sorrow  had  baptized  her;  the  routine  of  labor 
and  the  loneliness  of  almost  friendless  city-life  were 
before  her.  Yet,  as  I  looked  upon  her  tranquil  face, 
gradually  regaining  a  cheerfulness  which  was  often 
sprightly,  as  she  became  interested  in  the  various 
matters  we  talked  about  and  places  we  visited,  I  saw 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   323 

that  eye  and  lip  and  every  shifting  lineament  were 
made  for  love, — unconscious  of  their  sweet  office  as 
yet,  and  meeting  the  cold  aspect  of  Duty  with  the 
natural  graces  which  were  meant  for  the  reward  of 
nothing  less  than  the  Great  Passion. 

1  never  addressed  one  word  of  love  to  the 

schoolmistress  in  the  course  of  these  pleasant  walks. 
It  seemed  to  me  that  we  talked  of  everything  but 
love  on  that  particular  morning.  There  was,  per- 
haps, a  little  more  timidity  and  hesitancy  on  my 
part  than  I  have  commonly  shown  among  our  people 
at  the  boarding-house.  In  fact,  I  considered  myself 
the  master  at  the  breakfast-table ;  but,  somehow,  I 
could  not  command  myself  just  then  so  well  as 
usual.  The  truth  is,  I  had  secured  a  passage  to 
Liverpool  in  the  steamer  which  was  to  leave  at 
noon, — with  the  condition,  however,  of  being  re- 
leased in  case  circumstances  occurred  to  detain  me. 
The  schoolmistress  knew  nothing  about  all  this,  of 
course,  as  yet. 

It  was  on  the  Common  that  we  were  walking. 
The  mall,  or  boulevard  of  our  Common,  you  know, 
has  various  branches  leading  from  it  in  different 
directions.  One  of  these  runs  down  from  opposite 
Joy  Street  southward  across  the  whole  length  of  the 
Common  to  Boylston  Street.  We  called  it  the  long 
path,  and  were  fond  of  it. 

I  felt  very  weak  indeed  (though  of  a  tolerably 
obust  habit)  as  we  came  opposite  the  head  of  this 


324   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

path  on  that  morning.  I  think  I  tried  to  speak  twice 
without  making  myself  distinctly  audible.  At  last 

I  got  out  the  question,- Will  you  take  the  long 

path  with  me? Certainly, — said  the  schoolmis- 
tress,— with  much  pleasure. Think, — I  said, — 

before  you  answer ;  if  you  take  the  long  path  with 
me  now,  I  shall  interpret  it  that  we  are  to  part  no 

more! The  schoolmistress  stepped  back  with  a 

sudden  movement,  as  if  an  arrow  had  struck  her. 

One  of  the  long  granite  blocks  used  as  seats  was 
hard  by, — the  one  you  may  still  see  close  by  the 

Gingko-tree. Pray,  sit  down, — I  said. No,  no, 

she  answered,  softly, — I  will  walk  the  long  path  with 
you! 

The  old  gentleman  who  sits  opposite  met  us 

walking,  arm  in  arm,  about  the  middle  of  the  long 
path,  and  said,  very  charmingly, — "  Good  morning, 
my  dears !  " 


XII. 

[I  DID  not  think  it  probable  that  I  should  have  a 
great  many  more  talks  with  our  company,  and  there- 
fore I  was  anxious  to  get  as  much  as  I  could  into  every 
conversation.  That  is  the  reason  why  you  will  find 
some  odd,  miscellaneous  facts  here,  which  I  wished 
to  tell  at  least  once,  as  I  should  not  have  a  chance  to 


THE  AUTOCKAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   325 

tell  them  habitually,  at  our  breakfast-table. — We're 
very  free  and  easy,  you  know;  we  don't  read  what 
we  don't  like.  Our  parish  is  so  large,  one  can't  pre- 
tend to  preach  to  all  the  pews  at  once.  One  can't 
be  all  the  time  trying  to  do  the  best  of  one's  best ; 
if  a  company  works  a  steam  fire-engine,  the  firemen 
needn't  be  straining  themselves  all  day  to  squirt  over 
the  top  of  the  flagstaff.  Let  them  wash  some  of 
those  lower-story  windows  a  little.  Besides,  there  is 
no  use  in  our  quarrelling  now,  as  you  will  find  out 
when  you  get  through  this  paper.] 

Travel,  according  to  my  experience,  does  not 

exactly  correspond  to  the  idea  one  gets  of  it  out  of 
most  books  of  travels.  I  am  thinking  of  travel  as 
it  was  when  I  made  the  Grand  Tour,  especially  in 
Italy.  Memory  is  a  net;  one  finds  it  full  of  fish 
when  he  takes  it  from  the  brook ;  but  a  dozen  miles 
of  water  have  run  through  it  without  sticking.  I 
can  prove  some  facts  about  travelling  by  a  story  or 
two.  There  are  certain  principles  to  be  assumed, — 
such  as  these : — He  who  is  carried  by  horses  must 
deal  with  rogues. — To-day's  dinner  subtends  a  larger 
visual  angle  than  yesterday's  revolution.  A  mote  in 
my  eye  is  bigger  to  me  than  the  biggest  of  Dr. 
Gould's  private  planets. — Every  traveller  is  a  self- 
taught  entomologist. — Old  jokes  are  dynamometers 
of  mental  tension ;  an  old  joke  tells  better  among 
friends  travelling  than  at  home, — which  shows  that 
their  minds  are  in  a  state  of  diminished,  rather  than 


326   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

increased  vitality.  There  was  a  story  about  "  strahps 
to  your  pahnts,"  which  was  vastly  funny  to  us  fel- 
lows— on  the  road  from  Milan  to  Venice. —  Caslum, 
non  animum, — travellers  change  their  guineas,  but 
not  their  characters.  The  bore  is  the  same,  eating 
dates  under  the  cedars  of  Lebanon,  as  over  a  plate 
of  baked  beans  in  Beacon  Street. — Parties  of  travel- 
lers have  a  morbid  instinct  for  "  establishing  raws  " 
upon  each  other. — A  man  shall  sit  down  with  his 
friend  at  the  foot  of  the  Great  Pyramid  and  they  will 
take  up  the  question  they  had  been  talking  about 
under  "  the  great  elm,"  and  forget  all  about  Egypt. 
When  I  was  crossing  the  Po,  we  were  all  fighting 
about  the  propriety  of  one  fellow's  telling  another 
that  his  argument  was  absurd;  one  maintaining  it  to 
be  a  perfectly  admissible  logical  term,  as  proved  by 
the  phrase  "  reductio  ad  absurdum  ; "  the  rest  bad- 
gering him  as  a  conversational  bully.  Mighty  little 
we  troubled  ourselves  for  Padus,  the  Po,  "  a  river 
broader  and  more  rapid  than  the  Rhone,"  and  the 
times  when  Hannibal  led  his  grim  Africans  to  its 
banks,  and  his  elephants  thrust  their  trunks  into 
the  yellow  waters  over  which  that  pendulum  ferry- 
boat was  swinging  back  and  forward  every  ten 
minutes ! 

Here  are  some  of  those  reminiscences,  with 

morals  prefixed,  or  annexed,  or  implied. 

Lively  emotions  very  commonly  do  not  strike  us 
full  in  front,  but  obliquely  from  the  side ;  a  scene  or 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   327 

incident  in  undress  often  affects  us  more  than  one  in 
full  costume. 

"  Is  this  the  mighty  ocean  ? — is  this  all  ?  " 

says  the  Princess  in  Gebir.  The  rush  that  should 
have  flooded  my  soul  in  the  Coliseum  did  not  come. 
But  walking  one  day  in  the  fields  about  the  city,  I 
stumbled  over  a  fragment  of  broken  masonry,  and  lo  ! 
the  World's  Mistress  in  her  stone  girdle — alta  mania 
Romas — rose  before  me  and  whitened  my  cheek  with 
her  pale  shadow  as  never  before  or  since. 

I  used  very  often,  when  coming  home  from  my 
morning's  work  at  one  of  the  public  institutions  of 
Paris,  to  stop  in  at  the  dear  old  church  of  St.  Eti- 
enne  du  Mont.  The  tomb  of  St.  Genevieve,  sur- 
rounded by  burning  candles  and  votive  tablets,  was 
there ;  the  mural  tablet  of  Jacobus  Benignus  Wins- 
low  was  there  ;  there  was  a  noble  organ  with  carved 
figures ;  the  pulpit  was  borne  on  the  oaken  shoulders 
of  a  stooping  Samson ;  and  there  was  a  marvellous 
staircase  like  a  coil  of  lace.  These  things  I  mention 
from  memory,  but  not  all  of  them  together  impressed 
me  so  much  as  an  inscription  on  a  small  slab  of 
marble  fixed  in  one  of  the  walls.  It  told  how  this 
church  of  St.  Stephen  was  repaired  and  beautified  in 
the  year  16**,  and  how,  during  the  celebration  of  its 
reopening,  two  girls  of  the  parish  (filles  de  la  paroisse) 
fell  from  the  gallery,  carrying  a  part  of  the  balustrade 
with  them,  to  the  pavement,  but  by  a  miracle  es- 
caped uninjured.  Two  young  girls,  nameless,  but 


328   THE  AUTOCKAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

real  presences  to  my  imagination,  as  much  as  when 
they  came  fluttering  down  on  the  tiles  with  a  cry 
that  outscreamed  the  sharpest  treble  in  the  Te  Deum  ! 
(Look  at  Carlyle's  article  on  Boswell,  and  see  how 
he  speaks  of  the  poor  young  woman  Johnson  talked 
with  in  the  streets  one  evening.)  All  the  crowd 
gone  but  these  two  "  filles  de  la  paroisse," — gone 
as  utterly  as  the  dresses  they  wore,  as  the  shoes 
that  were  on  their  feet,  as  the  bread  and  meat  that 
were  in  the  market  on  that  day. 

Not  the  great  historical  events,  but  the  personal 
incidents  that  call  up  single  sharp  pictures  of  some 
human  being  in  its  pang  or  struggle,  reach  us  most 
nearly.  I  remember  the  platform  at  Berne,  over  the 
parapet  of  which  Theobald  Weinziipfli's  restive  horse 
sprung  with  him  and  landed  him  more  than  a  hun- 
dred feet  beneath  in  the  lower  town,  not  dead,  bat 
sorely  broken,  and  no  longer  a  wild  youth,  but  God's 
servant  from  that  day  forward.  I  have  forgotten  the 
famous  bears,  and  all  else. — I  remember  the  Percy 
lion  on  the  bridge  over  the  little  river  at  Alnwick, — 
the  leaden  lion  with  his  tail  stretched  out  straight 
like  a  pump-handle, — and  why  ?  Because  of  the 
story  of  the  village  boy  who  must  fain  bestride  the 
leaden  tail,  standing  out  over  the  water, — which 
breaking,  he  dropped  into  the  stream  far  below, 
and  was  taken  out  an  idiot  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 

Arrow-heads  must  be  brought  to  a  sharp  point, 
and  the  guillotine-axe  must  have  a  slanting  edge. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   329 

Something  intensely  human,  narrow,  and  definite 
pierces  to  the  seat  of  our  sensibilities  more  readily 
than  huge  occurrences  and  catastrophes.  A  nail 
will  pick  a  lock  that  defies  hatchet  and  hammer. 
"  The  Royal  George"  went  down  with  all  her  crew, 
and  Cowper  wrote  an  exquisitely  simple  poem  about 
it ;  but  the  leaf  which  holds  it  is  smooth,  while  that 
which  bears  the  lines  on  his  mother's  portrait  is 
blistered  with  tears. 

My  telling  these  recollections  sets  me  thinking  of 
others  of  the  same  kind  which  strike  the  imagination, 
especially  when  one  is  still  young.  You  remember 
the  monument  in  Devizes  market  to  the  woman 
struck  dead  with  a  lie  in  her  mouth.  I  never  saw 
that,  but  it  is  in  the  books.  Here  is  one  I  never 
heard  mentioned ; — if  any  of  the  "  Note  and  Query  " 
tribe  can  tell  the  story,  I  hope  they  will.  Where  is 
this  monument  ?  I  was  riding  on  an  English  stage- 
coach when  we  passed  a  handsome  marble  column 
(as  I  remember  it)  of  considerable  size  and  preten- 
sions.— What  is  that? — I  said. — That, — answered 
the  coachman, — is  the  hangman's  pillar.  Then  he 
told  me  how  a  man  went  out  one  night,  many  years 
ago,  to  steal  sheep.  He  caught  one,  tied  its  legs 
together,  passed  the  rope  over  his  head,  and  started 
for  home.  In  climbing  a  fence,  the  rope  slipped, 
caught  him  by  the  neck,  and  strangled  him.  Next 
morning  he  was  found  hanging  dead  on  one  side  of 
the  fence  and  the  sheep  on  the  other ;  in  memory 


330       THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

whereof  the  lord  of  the  manor  caused  this  monu- 
ment to  be  erected  as  a  warning  to  all  who  love 
mutton  better  than  virtue.  I  will  send  a  copy  of 
this  record  to  hirn  or  her  who  shall  first  set  me  right 
about  this  column  and  its  locality. 

And  telling  over  these  old  stories  reminds  me  that 
I  have  something  which  may  interest  architects  and 
perhaps  some  other  persons.  I  once  ascended  the 
spire  of  Strasburg  Cathedral,  which  is  the  highest, 
I  think,  in  Europe.  It  is  a  shaft  of  stone  filigree- 
work,  frightfully  open,  so  that  the  guide  puts  his 
arms  behind  you  to  keep  you  from  falling.  To 
climb  it  is  a  noonday  nightmare,  and  to  think  of 
having  climbed  it  crisps  all  the  fifty-six  joints  of 
one's  twenty  digits.  While  I  was  on  it,  "  pinnacled 
dim  in  the  intense  inane,"  a  strong  wind  was  blow- 
ing, and  I  felt  sure  that  the  spire  was  rocking.  It 
swayed  back  and  forward  like  a  stalk  of  rye  or  a 
cat-o'nine-tails  (bulrush)  with  a  bobolink  on  it.  I 
mentioned  it  to  the  guide,  and  he  said  that  the  spire 
did  really  swing  back  and  forward, — I  think  he  said 
some  feet. 

Keep  any  line  of  knowledge  ten  years  and  some 
other  line  will  intersect  it.  Long  afterwards  I  was 
hunting  out  a  paper  of  Dumeril's  in  -an  old  journal, 
— the  "  Magazin  Encyclopedique  "  for  fan  trolsieme, 
(1795,)  when  I  stumbled  upon  a  brief  article  on  the 
vibrations  of  the  spire  of  Strasburg  Cathedral.  A 
man  can  shake  it  so  that  the  movement  shall  be 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   331 

shown  in  a  vessel  of  water  nearly  seventy  feet  below 
the  summit,  and  higher  up  the  vibration  is  like  that 
of  an  earthquake.  I  have  seen  one  of  those  wretched 
wooden  spires  with  which  we  very  shabbily  finish 
some  of  our  stone  churches  (thinking  that  the  lidless 
blue  eye  of  heaven  cannot  tell  the  counterfeit  we 
try  to  pass  on  it,)  swinging  like  a  reed,  in  a  wind, 
but  one  would  hardly  think  of  such  a  thing's  hap- 
pening in  a  stone  spire.  Does  the  Bunker- Hill  Mon- 
ument bend  in  the  blast  like  a  blade  of  grass  ?  I 
suppose  so. 

You  see,  of  course,  that  I  am  talking  in  a  cheap 
way ; — perhaps  we  will  have  some  philosophy  by 
and  by ; — let  me  work  out  this  thin  mechanical  vein. 
— I  have  something  more  to  say  about  trees.  I  have 
brought  down  this  slice  of  hemlock  to  show  you. 
Tree  blew  down  in  my  woods  (that  were)  in  1852. 
Twelve  feet  and  a  half  round,  fair  girth ; — nine  feet, 
where  I  got  my  section,  higher  up.  This  is  a  wedge, 
going  to  the  centre,  of  the  general  shape  of  a  slice 
of  apple-pie  in  a  large  and  not  opulent  family. 
Length,  about  eighteen  inches.  I  have  studied  the 
growth  of  this  tree  by  its  rings,  and  it  is  curious. 
Three  hundred  and  forty-two  rings.  Started,  there- 
fore, about  1510.  The  thickness  of  the  rings  tells 
the  rate  at  which  it  grew.  For  five  or  six  years  the 
rate  was  slow, — then  rapid  for  twenty  years.  A 
little  before  the  year  1550  it  began  to  grow  very 
slowly,  and  so  continued  for  about  seventy  years.  Tn 


332   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

1620  it  took  a  new  start  and  grew  fast  until  1714 ; 
then  for  the  most  part  slowly  until  1786,  when  it 
started  again  and  grew  pretty  well  and  uniformly 
until  within  the  last  dozen  years,  when  it  seems  to 
have  got  on  sluggishly. 

Look  here.  Here  are  some  human  lives  laid  do.wn 
against  the  periods  of  its  growth,  to  which  they  cor- 
responded. This  is  Shakspeare's.  The  tree  was 
seven  inches  in  diameter  when  he  was  born ;  ten 
inches  when  he  died.  A  little  less  than  ten  inches 
when  Milton  was  born ;  seventeen  when  he  died. 
Then  comes  a  long  interval,  and  this  thread  marks 
out  Johnson's  life,  during  which  the  tree  increased 
from  twenty -two  to  twenty -nine  inches  in  diameter. 
Here  *  is  the  span  of  Napoleon's  career ; — the  tree 
doesn't  seem  to  have  minded  it. 

I  never  saw  the  man  yet  who  was  not  startled  at 
looking  on  this  section.  I  have  seen  many  wooden 
preachers, — never  one  like  this.  How  much  more 
striking  would  be  the  calendar  counted  on  the  rings 
of  one  of  those  awful  trees  which  were  standing 
when  Christ  was  on  earth,  and  where  that  brief  mor- 
tal life  is  chronicled  with  the  stolid  apathy  of  vege- 
table being,  which  remembers  all  human  history  as 
a  thing  of  yesterday  in  its  own  dateless  existence ! 

I  have  something  more  to  say  about  elms.  A 
relative  tells  me  there  is  one  of  great  glory  in  Ando- 
ver,  near  Bradford.  I  have  some  recollections  of  the 
former  place,  pleasant  and  other.  [I  wonder  if  the 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   333 

old  Seminary  clock  strikes  as  slowly  as  it  used  to. 
My  room-mate  thought,  when  he  first  came,  it  was 
the  bell  tolling  deaths,  and  people's  ages,  as  they  do 
in  the  country.  He  swore — (ministers'  sons  get  so 
familiar  with  good  words  that  they  are  apt  to  handle 
them  carelessly) — that  the  children  were  dying  by 
the  dozen,  of  all  ages,  from  one  to  twelve,  and  ran 
off  next  day  in  recess,  when  it  began  to  strike  eleven, 
but  was  caught  before  the  clock  got  through  strik- 
ing.] At  the  foot  of  "  the  hill,"  down  in  town,  is,  or 
was,  a  tidy  old  elm,  which  was  said  to  have  been 
hooped  with  iron  to  protect  it  from  Indian  toma- 
hawks, (Credat  Hahnemannus,)  and  to  have  grown 
round  its  hoops  and  buried  them  in  its  wood.  Of 
course,  this  is  not  the  tree  my  relative  means. 

Also,  I  have  a  very  pretty  letter  from  Norwich,  in 
Connecticut,  telling  me  of  two  noble  elms  which 
are  to  be  seen  in  that  town.  One  hundred  and 
twenty-seven  feet  from  bough-end  to  bough-end! 
What  do  you  say  to  that?  And  gentle  ladies  be- 
neath it,  that  love  it  and  celebrate  its  praises  !  And 
that  in  a  town  of  such  supreme,  audacious,  Alpine 
loveliness  as  Norwich ! — Only  the  dear  people  there 
must  learn  to  call  it  Norridge,  and  not  be  misled  by 
the  mere  accident  of  spelling. 

Noiwich. 

Porch  mouth. 

Cincinnati. 
What  a  sad  picture  of  our  civilization ! 


334   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

I  did  not  speak  to  you  of  the  great  tree  on  what 
used  to  be  the  Colman  farm,  in  Deerfield,  simply 
because  I  had  not  seen  it  for  many  years,  and  did 
not  like  to  trust  my  recollection.  But  I  had  it  in 
memory,  and  even  noted  down,  as  one  of  the  finest 
trees  in  symmetry  and  beauty  I  had  ever  seen.  I 
have  received  a  document,  signed  by  two  citizens  of 
a  neighboring  town,  certified  by  the  postmaster  and 
a  selectman,  and  these  again  corroborated,  reinforced, 
and  sworn  to  by  a  member  of  that  extraordinary  col- 
lege-class to  which  it  is  the  good  fortune  of  my  friend 
the  Professor  to  belong,  who,  though  he  has  formerly 
been  a  member  of  Congresses,  I  believe,  fully  worthy 
of  confidence.  The  tree  "  girts "  eighteen  and  a 
half  feet,  and  spreads  over  a  hundred,  and  is  a  real 
beauty.  I  hope  to  meet  my  friend  under  its  branches 
yet ;  if  we  don't  have  "  youth  at  the  prow,"  we  will 
have  "  pleasure  at  the  'elm." 

And  just  now,  again,  I  have  got  a  letter  about 
some  grand  willows  in  Maine,  and  another  about  an 
elm  in  Wayland,  but  too  late  for  anything  but 
thanks. 

[And  this  leads  me  to  say,  that  I  have  received  a 
great  many  communications,  in  prose  and  verse, 
since  I  began  printing  these  notes.  The  last  came 
this  very  morning,  in  the  shape  of  a  neat  and  brief 
poem,  from  New  Orleans.  I  could  not  make  any  of 
them  public,  though  sometimes  requested  to  do  so. 
Some  of  them  have  given  me  great  pleasure,  and 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   335 

encouraged  me  to  believe  I  had  friends  whose  faces 
I  had  never  seen.  If  you  are  pleased  with  anything 
a  writer  says,  and  doubt  whether  to  tell  him  of  it,  do 
not  hesitate ;  a  pleasant  word  is  a  cordial  to  one,  who 
perhaps  thinks  he  is  tiring  you,  and  so  becomes  tired 
himself.  I  purr  very  loud  over  a  good,  honest  letter 
that  says  pretty  things  to  me.] 

Sometimes  very  young  persons  send  commu- 
nications which  they  want  forwarded  to  editors ;  and 
these  young  persons  do  not  always  seem  to  have 
right  conceptions  of  these  same  editors,  and  of  the 
public,  and  of  themselves.  Here  is  a  letter  I  wrote 
to  one  of  these  young  folks,  but,  on  the  whole, 
thought  it  best  not  to  send.  It  is  not  fair  to  single 
out  one  for  such  sharp  advice,  where  there  are  hun- 
dreds that  are  in  need  of  it. 

DEAR  SIR, — You  seem  to  be  somewhat,  but  not  a 
great  deal,  wiser  than  I  was  at  your  age.  I  don't 
wish  to  be  understood  as  saying  too  much,  for  I 
think,  without  committing  myself  to  any  opinion  on 
my  present  state,  that  I  was  not  a  Solomon  at  that 
stage  of  development. 

You  long  to  "  leap  at  a  single  bound  into  celeb- 
rity." Nothing  is  so  common-place  as  to  wish  to  be 
remarkable.  Fame  usually  comes  to  those  who  are 
thinking  about  something  else, — very  rarely  to  those 
who  say  to  themselves,  "  Go  to,  now,  let  us  be  a 
celebrated  individual!"  The  struggle  for  fame,  as 


336        THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

such,  commonly  ends  in  notoriety ; — that  ladder  is 
easy  to  climb,  but  it  leads  to  the  pillory  which  is 
crowded  with  fools  who  could  not  hold  their  tongues 
and  rogues  who  could  not  hide  their  tricks. 

If  you  have  the  consciousness  of  genius,  do  some- 
thing to  show  it.  The  world  is  pretty  quick,  nowa- 
days, to  catch  the  flavor  of  true  originality ;  if  you 
write  anything  remarkable,  the  magazines  and  news- 
papers will  find  you  out,  as  the  school-boys  find  out 
where  the  ripe  apples  and  pears  are.  Produce  any- 
thing really  good,  and  an  intelligent  editor  will  jump 
at  it.  Don't  flatter  yourself  that  any  article  of  yours 
is  rejected  because  you  are  unknown  to  fame.  Noth- 
ing pleases  an  editor  more  than  to  get  anything 
worth  having  from  a  new  hand.  There  is  always  a 
dearth  of  really  fine  articles  for  a  first-rate  journal; 
for,  of  a  hundred  pieces  received,  ninety  are  at  or 
below  the  sea-level;  some  have  water  enough,  but 
no  head;  some  head  enough,  but  no  water;  only 
two  or  three  are  from  full  reservoirs,  high  up  that  hill 
which  is  so  hard  to  climb. 

You  may  have  genius.  The  contrary  is  of  course 
probable,  but  it  is  not  demonstrated.  If  you  have, 
the  world  wants  you  more  than  you  want  it.  It  has 
not  only  a  desire,  but  a  passion,  for  every  spark  of 
genius  that  shows  itself  among  us  ;  there  is  not  a 
bull-calf  in  our  national  pasture  that  can  bleat  a 
rhyme  but  it  is  ten  to  one,  among  his  friends,  and 
no  takers,  that  he  is  the  real,  genuine,  no-mistake 
Osiris. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   337 

Qu'est  ce  qrfil  a  fait  ?  What  has  he  done  ?  That 
was  Napoleon's  test.  What  have  you  done?  Turn 
up  the  faces  of  your  picture-cards,  my  boy!  You 
need  not  make  mouths  at  the  public  because  it  has 
not  accepted  you  at  your  own  fancy-valuation.  Do 
the  prettiest  thing  you  can  and  wait  your  time. 

For  the  verses  you  send  me,  I  will  not  say  they 
are  hopeless,  and  I  dare  not  affirm  that  they  show 
promise.  I  am  not  an  editor,  but  I  know  the  stand- 
ard of  some  editors.  You  must  not  expect  to  "  leap 
with  a  single  bound "  into  the  society  of  those 
whom  it  is  not  flattery  to  call  your  betters.  When 
"  The  Pactolian  "  has  paid  you  for  a  copy  of  verses, 
— (I  can  furnish  you  a  list  of  alliterative  signatures, 
beginning  with  Annie  Aureole  and  ending  with  Zoe 
Zenith,) — when  "  The  Rag-bag "  has  stolen  your 
piece,  after  carefully  scratching  your  name  out, — 
when  "  The  Nut-cracker "  has  thought  you  worth 
shelling,  and  strung  the  kernel  of  your  cleverest 
poem, — then^  and  not  till  then,  you  may  consider 
the  presumption  against  you,  from  the  fact  of  your 
rhyming  tendency,  as  called  in  question,  and  let 
our  friends  hear  from  you,  if  you  think  it  worth 
while.  You  may  possibly  think  me  too  candid,  and 
even  accuse  me  of  incivility ;  but  let  me  assure  you 
that  I  am  not  half  so  plain-spoken  as  Nature,  nor 
half  so  rude  as  Time.  If  you  prefer  the  long  jolting 
of  public  opinion  to  the  gentle  touch  of  friendship, 
try  it  like  a  man.  Only  remember  this, — that,  if  a 

16 


338   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

bushel  of  potatoes  is  shaken  in  a  market-cart  with- 
out springs  to  it,  the  small  potatoes  always  get  to 
the  bottom.  Believe  me,  etc.,  etc. 

I  always  think  of  verse-writers,  when  I  am  in  this 
vein  ;  for  these  are  by  far  the  most  exacting,  eager, 
self- weighing,  restless,  querulous,  unreasonable  liter- 
ary persons  one  is  like  to  meet  with.  Is  a  young 
man  in  the  habit  of  writing  verses  ?  Then  the  pre- 
sumption  is  that  he  is  an  inferior  person.  For,  look 
you,  there  are  at  least  nine  chances  in  ten  that  he 
writes  poor  verses.  Now  the  habit  of  chewing  on 
rhymes  without  sense  and  soul  to  match  them  is, 
like  that  of  using  any  other  narcotic,  at  once  a  proof 
of  feebleness  and  a  debilitating  agent.  A  young  man 
can  get  rid  of  the  presumption  against  him  afforded 
by  his  writing  verses  only  by  convincing  us  that 
they  are  verses  worth  writing. 

All  this  sounds  hard  and  rough,  but,  observe,  it  is 
not  addressed  to  any  individual,  and  of  course  does 
not  refer  to  any  reader  of  these  pages.  I  would 
always  treat  any  given  young  person  passing  through 
the  meteoric  showers  which  rain  down  on  the  brief 
period  of  adolescence  with  great  tenderness.  God 
forgive  us  if  we  ever  speak  harshly  to  young  crea- 
tures on  the  strength  of  these  ugly  truths,  and  so, 
sooner  or  later,  smite  some  tender-souled  poet  or 
poetess  on  the  lips  who  might  have  sung  the  world 
into  sweet  trances,  had  we  not  silenced  the  matin- 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   339 

song  in  its  first  low  breathings !  Just  as  my  heart 
yearns  over  the  unloved,  just  so  it  sorrows  for  the 
ungifted  who  are  doomed  to  the  pangs  of  an  un- 
deceived self-estimate.  I  have  always  tried  to  be 
gentle  with  the  most  hopeless  cases.  My  experience, 
however,  has  not  been  encouraging. 

X.  Y.,  set.  18,  a  cheaply-got-up  youth,  with 

narrow  jaws,  and  broad,  bony,  cold,  red  hands, 
having  been  laughed  at  by  the  girls  in  his  village, 
and  "  got  the  mitten "  (pronounced  mittm)  two  or 
three  times,  falls  to  souling  and  controlling,  and 
youthing  and  truthing,  in  the  newspapers.  Sends 
me  some  strings  of  verses,  candidates  for  the  Ortho- 
pedic Infirmary,  all  of  them,  in  which  I  learn  for  the 
millionth  time  one  of  the  following  facts :  either 
that  something  about  a  chime  is  sublime,  or  that 
something  about  time  is  sublime,  or  that  something 
about  a  chime  is  concerned  with  time,  or  that  some- 
thing about  a  rhyme  is  sublime  or  concerned  with 
time  or  with  a  chime.  Wishes  my  opinion  of  the 
same,  with  advice  as  to  his  future  course. 

What  shall  I  do  about  it  ?  Tell  him  the  whole 
truth,  and  send  him  a  ticket  of  admission  to  the 
Institution  for  Idiots  and  Feeble-minded  Youth  ? 
One  doesn't  like  to  be  cruel, — and  yet  one  hates  to 
lie.  Therefore  one  softens  down  the  ugly  central 
fact  of  donkeyism, — recommends  study  of  good 
models, — that  writing  verse  should  be  an  incidental 
occupation  only,  not  interfering  with  the  hoe,  the 


340   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

needle,  the  lapstone,  or  the  ledger, — and,  above  all, 
that  there  should  be  no  hurry  in  printing  what  is 
written.  Not  the  least  use  in  all  this.  The  poetaster 
who  has  tasted  type  is  done  for.  He  is  like  the  man 
who  has  once  been  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency. 
He  feeds  on  the  madder  of  his  delusion  all  his  days, 
and  his  very  bones  grow  red  with  the  glow  of  his 
foolish  fancy.  One  of  these  young  brains  is  like  a 
bunch  of  India  crackers ;  once  touch  fire  to  it  and  it 
is  best  to  keep  hands  off  until  it  has  done  popping, — 
if  it  ever  stops.  I  have  two  letters  on  file ;  one  is  a 
pattern  of  adulation,  the  other  of  impertinence.  My 
reply  to  the  first,  containing  the  best  advice  I  could 
give,  conveyed  in  courteous  language,  had  brought 
out  the  second.  There  was  some  sport  in  this,  but 
Dulness  is  not  commonly  a  game  fish,  and  only 
sulks  after  he  is  struck.  You  may  set  it  down  as  a 
truth  which  admits  of  few  exceptions,  that  those 
who  ask  your  opinion  really  want  your  praise,  and 
will  be  contented  with  nothing  less. 

There  is  another  kind  of  application  to  which 
editors,  or  those  supposed  to  have  access  to  them, 
are  liable,  and  which  often  proves  trying  and  painful. 
One  is  appealed  to  in  behalf  of  some  person  in 
needy  circumstances  who  wishes  to  make  a  living 
by  the  pen.  A  manuscript  accompanying  the  letter 
is  offered  for  publication.  It  is  not  commonly  bril- 
liant, too  often  lamentably  deficient.  If  Rachel's 
saying  is  true,  that  "  fortune  is  the  measure  of  intel- 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   341 

ligence,"  then  poverty  is  evidence  of  limited  capacity, 
which  it  too  frequently  proves  to  be,  notwithstand- 
ing a  noble  exception  here  and  there.  Now  an 
editor  is  a  person  under  a  contract  with  the  public 
to  furnish  them  with  the  best  things  he  can  afford 
for  his  money.  Charity  shown  by  the  publication 
of  an  inferior  article  would  be  like  the  generosity 
of  Claude  Duval  and  the  other  gentlemen  highway- 
men, who  pitied  the  poor  so  much  they  robbed  the 
rich  to  have  the  means  of  relieving  them. 

Though  I  am  not  and  never  was  an  editor,  I  know 
something  of  the  trials  to  which  they  are  submitted. 
They  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  develope  enormous 
calluses  at  every  point  of  contact  with  authorship. 
Their  business  is  not  a  matter  of  sympathy,  but  of 
intellect.  They  must  reject  the  unfit  productions 
of  those  whom  they  long  to  befriend,  because  it 
would  be  a  profligate  charity  to  accept  them.  One 
cannot  burn  his  house  down  to  warm  the  hands  even 
of  the  fatherless  and  the  widow. 


THE    PROFESSOR    UNDER    CHLOROFORM. 

You  haven't  heard  about  my  friend  the  Pro- 
fessor's first  experiment  in  the  use  of  anaesthetics, 
have  you? 

He  was  mightily  pleased  with  the  reception  of 
that  poem  of  his  about  the  chaise.  He  spoke  to  me 


342   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

once  or  twice  about  another  poem  of  similar  charac- 
ter he  wanted  to  read  me,  which  I  told  him  I  would 
listen  to  and  criticize. 

One  day,  after  dinner,  he  came  in  with  his  face 
tied  up,  looking  very  red  in  the  cheeks  and  heavy 
about  the  eyes. — Hy Vye  ? — he  said,  and  made  for 
an  arm-chair,  in  which  he  placed  first  his  hat  and 
then  his  person,  going  smack  through  the  crown  of 
the  former  as  neatly  as  they  do  the  trick  at  the 
circus.  The  Professor  jumped  at  the  explosion  as 
if  he  had  sat  down  on  one  of  those  small  calthrops 
our  grandfathers  used  to  sow  round  in  the  grass 
when  there  were  Indians  about, — iron  stars,  each  ray 
a  rusty  thorn  an  inch  and  a  half  long, — stick  through 
moccasins  into  feet, — cripple  'em  on  the  spot,  and 
give  'em  lockjaw  in  a  day  or  two. 

At  the  same  time  he  let  off  one  of  those  big  words 
which  lie  at  the  bottom  of  the  best  man's  vocabu- 
lary, but  perhaps  never  turn  up  in  his  life, — just 
as  every  man's  hair  may  stand  on  end,  but  in  most 
men  it  never  does. 

After  he  had  got  calm,  he  pulled  out  a  sheet  or  two 
of  manuscript,  together  with  a  smaller  scrap,  on  which, 
as  he  said,  he  had  just  been  writing  an  introduction 
or  prelude  to  the  main  performance.  A  certain  sus- 
picion had  come  into  my  mind  that  the  Professor 
was  not  quite  right,  which  was  confirmed  by  the 
way  he  talked;  but  I  let  him  begin.  This  is  the 
way  he  read  it: — 


THE  AUTOCKAT   OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.        343 

Prelude. 

I'M  the  fellah  that  tole  one  day 
The  tale  of  the  won'erful  one-hoss-shay. 
Wan'  to  hear  another  ?     Say. 
— Funny,  wasn'it  ?     Made  me  laugh, — 
I'm  too  modest,  I  am,  by  half, — 
Made  me  laugh  's  though  1  sh'd  split, — 
Calm'  a  fellah  like  fellah's  own  wit  ? 
— Fellahs  keep  sayin', — "  Well,  now  that's  nice ; 
Did  it  once,  but  cahn'  do  it  twice." — 
Don'  you  b'lieve  the'z  no  more  fat ; 
Lots  in  the  kitch'n  'z  good  'z  that. 
Fus'-rate  throw,  V  no  mistake, — 
Han*  us  the  props  for  another  shake ; — 
Know  I'll  try,  V  guess  I'll  win  ; 
Here  sh'  goes  for  hit  'm  ag'in  ! 

Here  I  thought  it  necessary  to  interpose. — Pro- 
fessor,— I  said, — you  are  inebriated.  The  style  of 
what  you  call  your  "  Prelude "  shows  that  it  was 
written  under  cerebral  excitement.  Your  articulation 
is  confused.  You  have  told  me  three  times  in  suc- 
cession, in  exactly  the  same  words,  that  I  was  the 
only  true  friend  you  had  in  the  world  that  you  would 
unbutton  your  heart  to.  You  smell  distinctly  and 
decidedly  of  spirits. — I  spoke,  and  paused ;  tender, 
but  firm. 

Two  large  tears  orbed  themselves  beneath  the 
Professor's  lids, — in  obedience  to  the  principle  of 
gravitation  celebrated  in  that  delicious  bit  of  blad- 
dery bathos,  "  The  very  law  that  moulds  a  tear," 


344   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

with  which  the  "  Edinburgh  Review "  attempted 
to  put  down  Master  George  Gordon  when  that 
young  man  was  foolishly  trying  to  make  himself 
conspicuous. 

One  of  these  tears  peeped  over  the  edge  of  the  lid 
until  it  lost  its  balance, — slid  an  inch  and  waited  for 
reinforcements, — swelled  again, — rolled  down  a  little 
further, — stopped, — moved  on, — and  at  last  fell  on 
the  back  of  the  Professor's  hand.  He  held  it  up  for 
me  to  look  at,  and  lifted  his  eyes,  brimful,  till  they 
met  mine. 

I  couldn't  stand  it, — I  always  break  down  when 
folks  cry  in  my  face, — so  I  hugged  him,  and  said  he 
was  a  dear  old  boy,  and  asked  him  kindly  what  was 
the  matter  with  him,  and  what  made  him  smell  so 
dreadfully  strong  of  spirits. 

Upset  his  alcohol  lamp,: — he  said, — and  spilt  the 
alcohol  on  his  legs.  That  was  it. — But  what  had  he 
been  doing  to  get  his  head  into  such  a  state  ? — had 
he  really  committed  an  excess  ?  What  was  the 
matter  ? — Then  it  came  out  that  he  had  been  taking 
chloroform  to  have  a  tooth  out,  which  had  left  him 
in  a  very  queer  state,  in  which  he  had  written  the 
"  Prelude  "  given  above,  and  under  the  influence  of 
which  he  evidently  was  still. 

I  took  the  manuscript  from  his  hands  and  read 
the  following  continuation  of  the  lines  he  had  begun 
to  read  me,  while  he  made  up  for  two  or  three  nights' 
lost  sleep  as  he  best  might. 


THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.        345 

PARSON  TURELL'S  LEGACY: 
OR,  THE  PRESIDENT'S  OLD  ARM-CHAIR. 

A  MATHEMATICAL  STORY. 

FACTS  respecting  an  old  arm-chair. 
At  Cambridge.     Is  kept  in  the  College  there. 
Seems  but  little  the  worse  for  wear. 
That's  remarkable  when  I  say 
It  was  old  in  President  Holyoke's  day. 
(One  of  his  boys,  perhaps  you  know, 
Died,  at  one  hundred,  years  ago.) 
He  took  lodging  for  rain  or  shine 
Under  green  bed-clothes  in  '69. 

Know  old  Cambridge  ?  Hope  you  do.— 
Born  there  ?     Don't  say  so  !    I  was,  too. 
(Born  in  a  house  with  a  gambrel-roof, — 
Standing  still,  if  you  must  have  proof. — 
"  Gambrel  ?— Gambrel  ?  "— Let  me  beg 
You'll  look  at  a  horse's  hinder  leg, — 
First  great  angle  above  the  hoof, — 
That's  the  gambrel ;  hence  gambrel-roof.) 
— Nicest  place  that  ever  was  seen, — 
Colleges  red  and  Common  green, 
Sidewalks  brownish  with  trees  between. 
Sweetest  spot  beneath  the  skies 
When  the  canker-worms  don't  rise, — 
When  the  dust,  that  sometimes  flies 
Into  your  mouth  and  ears  and  eyes, 
In  a  quiet  slumber  lies, 
Not  in  the  shape  of  unbaked  pies 
Such  as  barefoot  children  prize. 

A  kind  of  harbor  it  seems  to  be, 

Facing  the  flow  of  a  boundless  sea. 
15* 


346   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Rows  of  gray  old  Tutors  stand 

Ranged  like  rocks  above  the  sand ; 

Rolling  beneath  them,  soft  and  green, 

Breaks  the  tide  of  bright  sixteen, — 

One  wave,  two  waves,  three  waves,  four, 

Sliding  up  the  sparkling  floor ; 

Then  it  ebbs  to  flow  no  more, 

Wandering  off  from  shore  to  shore 

With  its  freight  of  golden  ore  ! 

— Pleasant  place  for  boys  to  play ; — 

Better  keep  your  girls  away  ; 

Hearts  get  rolled  as  pebbles  do 

Which  countless  fingering  waves  pursue, 

And  every  classic  beach  is  strown 

With  heart-shaped  pebbles  of  blood-red  stone. 

But  this  is  neither  here  nor  there  ; — 
I'm  talking  about  an  old  arm-chair. 
You've  heard,  no  doubt,  of  PARSON  TURELL  ? 
Over  at  Medford  he  used  to  dwell ; 
Married  one  of  the  Mathers'  folk  ; 
Got  with  his  wife  a  chair  of  oak, — 
Funny  old  chair,  with  seat  like  wedge, 
Sharp  behind  and  broad  front  edge, — 
One  of  the  oddest  of  human  things, 
Turned  all  over  with  knobs  and  rings, — 
But  heavy,  and  wide,  and  deep,  and  grand, — 
Fit  for  the  worthies  of  the  land, — 
Chief-Justice  Sewall  a  cause  to  try  in, 
Or  Cotton  Mather  to  sit — and  lie — in. 
— Parson  Turell  bequeathed  the  same 
To  a  certain  student, — SMITH  by  name ; 
These  were  the  terms,  as  we  are  told : 
"  Saide  Smith  saide  Chaire  to  have  and  holde  ; 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   347 

When  he  doth  graduate,  then  to  passe 

To  ye  oldest  Youth  in  ye  Senior  Classe. 

On  Payment  of" — (naming  a  certain  sum) — 

"  By  him  to  whom  ye  Chaire  shall  come ; 

He  to  ye  oldest  Senior  next, 

And  soe  forever," — (thus  runs  the  text,) — 

"  But  one  Crown  lesse  then  he  gave  to  claime, 

That  being  his  Debte  for  use  of  same." 

Smith  transferred  it  to  one  of  the  BROWNS, 
And  took  his  money, — five  silver  crowns. 
Brown  delivered  it  up  to  MOORE, 
Who  paid,  it  is  plain,  not  five,  but  four. 
Moore  made  over  the  chair  to  LEE, 
Who  gave  him  crowns  of  silver  three. 
Lee  conveyed  it  unto  DREW, 
And  now  the  payment,  of  course,  was  two. 
Drew  gave  up  the  chair  to  DUNN, — 
All  he  got,  as  you  see,  was  one. 
Dunn  released  the  chair  to  HALL, 
And  got  by  the  bargain  no  crown  at  all. 
— And  now  it  passed  to  a  second  BROWN, 
Who  took  it,  and  likewise  claimed  a  crown. 
When  Brown  conveyed  it  unto  WARE, 
Having  had  one  crown,  to  make  it  fair, 
He  paid  him  two  crowns  to  take  the  chair ; 
And  Ware,  being  honest,  (as  all  Wares  be,) 
He  paid  one  POTTER,  who  took  it,  three. 
Four  got  EOBINSON  ;  five  got  Dix  ; 
JOHNSON  primus  demanded  six ; 
And  so  the  sum  kept  gathering  still 
Till  after  the  battle  of  Bunker's  Hill. 
— When  paper  money  became  so  cheap, 
Folks  wouldn't  count  it,  but  said  "  a  heap," 


348   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

A  certain  Kic HARDS,  the  books  declare, 
(A.  M.  in  '90  ?    I've  looked  with  care 
Through  the  Triennial, — name  not  there.") 
This  person,  Richards,  was  offered  then 
Eight  score  pounds,  but  would  have  ten ; 
Nine,  I  think,  was  the  sum  he  took, — 
Not  quite  certain, — but  see  the  book. 
—By  and  by  the  wars  were  still, 
But  nothing  had  altered  the  Parson's  will. 
The  old  arm-chair  was  solid  yet,  N 

But  saddled  with  such  a  monstrous  debt  I 
Things  grew  quite  too  bad  to  bear, 
Paying  such  sums  to  get  rid  of  the  chair  ! 
But  dead  men's  fingers  hold  awful  tight, 
And  there  was  the  will  in  black  and  white, 
Plain  enough  for  a  child  to  spell. 
What  should  be  done  no  man  could  tell, 
For  the  chair  was  a  kind  of  nightmare  curse, 
And  every  season  but  made  it  worse. 

As  a  last  resort,  to  clear  the  doubt, 
They  got  old  GOVERNOR  HANCOCK  out. 
The  Governor  came,  with  his  Light-horse  Troop 
And  his  mounted  truckmen,  all  cock-a-hoop ; 
Halberds  glittered  and  colors  flew, 
French  horns  whinnied  and  trumpets  blew, 
The  yellow  fifes  whistled  between  their  teeth 
And  the  bumble-bee  bass-drums  boomed  beneath ; 
So  he  rode  with  all  his  band, 
Till  the  President  met  him,  cap  in  hand. 
— The  Governor  "  hefted  "  the  crowns,  and  said, — 
"  A  will  is  a  will,  and  the  Parson's  dead." 
The  Governor  hefted  the  crowns.     Said  he, — 
"  There  is  your  p'int.     And  here's  my  fee. 


THE  AUTOCEAT  'OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   349 

These  are  the  terms  you  must  fulfil, — 

On  such  conditions  I  BREAK  THE  WILL  I " 

The  Governor  mentioned  what  these  should  be. 

(Just  wait  a  minute  and  then  you'll  see.) 

The  President  prayed.     Then  all  was  still, 

And  the  Governor  rose  and  BROKE  THE  WILL  ! 

— "  About  those  conditions  ?  "    Well,  now  you  go 

And  do  as  I  tell  you,  and  then  you'll  know. 

Once  a  year,  on  Commencement-day, 

If  you'll  only  take  the  pains  to  stay, 

You'll  see  the  President  in  the  CHAIR, 

Likewise  the  Governor  sitting  there. 

The  President  rises  ;  both  old  and  young 

May  hear  his  speech  in  a  foreign  tongue, 

The  meaning  whereof,  as  lawyers  swear, 

Is  this :  Can  I  keep  this  old  arm-chair  ? 

And  then  his  Excellency  bows, 

As  much  as  to  say  that  he  allows. 

The  Yice-Gub.  next  is  called  by  name ; 

He  bows  like  t'other,  which  means  the  same. 

And  all  the  officers  round  'em  bow, 

As  much  as  to  say  that  they  allow. 

And  a  lot  of  parchments  about  the  chair 

Are  handed  to  witnesses  then  and  there, 

And  then  the  lawyers  hold  it  clear 

That  the  chair  is  safe  for  another  year. 

God  bless  you,  Gentlemen  !    Learn  to  give 
Money  to  colleges  while  you  live. 
Don't  be  silly  and  think  you'll  try- 
To  bother  the  colleges,  when  you  die, 
With  codicil  this,  and  codicil  that, 
That  Knowledge  may  starve  while  Law  grows  fat ; 
For  there  never  was  pitcher  that  wouldn't  spill, 
And  there's  always  a  flaw  in  a  donkey's  will ! 


350        THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Hospitality  is  a  good  deal  a  matter  of  lati 

tude,  I  suspect.  The  shade  of  a  palm-tree  serves 
an  African  for  a  hut ;  his  dwelling  is  all  door  and  no 
walls  ;  everybody  can  come  in.  To  make  a  morning 
call  on  an  Esquimaux  acquaintance,  one  must  creep 
through  a  long  tunnel ;  his  house  is  all  walls  and  no 
door,  except  such  a  one  as  an  apple  with  a  worm- 
hole  has.  One  might,  very  probably,  trace  a  regular 
gradation  between  these  two  extremes.  In  cities 
where  the  evenings  are  generally  hot,  the  people 
have  porches  at  their  doors,  where  they  sit,  and  this 
is,  of  course,  a  provocative  to  the  interchange  of 
civilities.  A  good  deal,*  which  in  colder  regions  is 
ascribed  to  mean  dispositions,  belongs  really  to 
mean  temperature. 

Once  in  a  while,  even  in  our  Northern  cities,  at 
noon,  in  a  very  hot  summer's  day,  one  may  realize, 
by  a  sudden  extension  in  his  sphere  of  conscious- 
ness, how  closely  he  is  shut  up  for  the  most  part. — 
Do  you  not  remember  something  like  this  ?  July, 
between  1  and  2,  p.  M.,  Fahrenheit  96°,  or  there- 
about. Windows  all  gaping,  like  the  mouths  of 
panting  dogs.  Long,  stinging  cry  of  a  locust  comes 
in  from  a  tree,  half  a  mile  off;  had  forgotten  there 
was  such  a  tree.  Baby's  screams  from  a  house  sev- 
eral blocks  distant; — never  knew  there  were  any 
babies  in  the  neighborhood  before.  Tinman  pound- 
ing something  that  clatters  dreadfully, — very  distinct, 
but  don't  remember  any  tinman's  shop  near  by. 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   35J 

Horses  stamping  on  pavement  to  get  off  flies. 
When  you  hear  these  four  sounds,  you  may  set  it 
down  as  a  warm  day.  Then  it  is  that  one  would 
like  to  imitate  the  mode  of  life  of  the  native  at 
Sierra  Leone,  as  somebody  has  described  it:  stroll 
into  the  market  in  natural  costume, — buy  a  water- 
melon for  a  halfpenny, — split  it,  and  scoop  out  the 
middle, — sit  down  in  one  half  of  the  empty  rind, 
clap  the  other  on  one's  head,  and  feast  upon  the 
pulp. 

1  see  some  of  the  London  journals  have  been 

attacking  some  of  their  literary  people  for  lecturing, 
on  the  ground  of  its  being  a  public  exhibition  of 
themselves  for  money.  A  popular  author  can  print 
his  lecture ;  if  he  deliver  it,  it  is  a  case  of  qucestum 
corpore,  or  making  profit  of  his  person.  None  but 
"  snobs  "  do  that.  Ergo,  etc.  To  this  I  reply, — 
Negatur  minor.  Her  Most  Gracious  Majesty,  the 
Queen,  exhibits  herself  to  the  public  as  a  part  of  the 
service  for  which  she  is  paid.  We  do  not  consider 
it  low-bred  in  her  to  pronounce  her  own  speech,  and 
should  prefer  it  so  to  hearing  it  from  any  other  per- 
son, or  reading  it.  His  Grace  and  his  Lordship 
exhibit  themselves  very  often  for  popularity,  and 
their  houses  every  day  for  money. — No,  if  a  man 
shows  himself  other  than  he  is,  if  he  belittles  him- 
self before  an  audience  for  hire,  then  he  acts  unwor- 
thily. But  a  true  word,  fresh  from  the  lips  of  a  true 
man,  is  worth  paying  for,  at  the  rate  of  eight  dollars 


352   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

a  day,  or  even  of  fifty  dollars  a  lecture.  The  taunt 
must  be  an  outbreak  of  jealousy  against  the  re- 
nowned authors  who  have  the  audacity  to  be  also 
orators.  The  sub-lieutenants  (of  the  press)  stick  a 
too  popular  writer  and  speaker  with  an  epithet  in 
England,  instead  of  with  a  rapier,  as  in  France. — 
Poh !  All  England  is  one  great  menagerie,  and,  all 
at  once,  the  jackal,  who  admires  the  gilded  cage  of 
the  royal  beast,  must  protest  against  the  vulgarity 
of  the  talking-bird's  and  the  nightingale's  being 
willing  to  become  a  part  of  the  exhibition ! 

THE    LONG    PATH. 
(Last  of  the  Parentheses.') 

Yes,  that  was  my  last  walk  with  the  school- 
mistress. It  happened  to  be  the  end  of  a  term  ;  and 
before  the  next  began,  a  very  nice  young  woman, 
who  had  been  her  assistant,  was  announced  as  her 
successor,  and  she  was  provided  for  elsewhere.  So 
it  was  no  longer  the  schoolmistress  that  I  walked 

with,  but Let  us  not  be  in  unseemly  haste.  I 

shall  call  her  the  schoolmistress  still;  some  of  you 
love  her  under  that  name. 

When  it  became  known  among  the  boarders 

that  two  of  their  number  had  joined  hands  to  walk 
down  the  long  path  of  life  side  by  side,  there  was, 
as  you  may  suppose,  no  small  sensation.  I  confess 
I  pitied  our  landlady.  It  took  her  all  of  a  suddin, — 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   353 

she  said.  Had  not  known  that  we  was  keepin 
company,  and  never  mistrusted  anything  partic'lar. 
Ma'am  was  right  to  better  herself.  Didn't  look  very 
rugged  to  take  care  of  a  femily,  but  could  get  hired 
haiilp,  she  calc'lated. — The  great  maternal  instinct 
came  crowding  up  in  her  soul  just  then,  and  her 
eyes  wandered  until  they  settled  on  her  daughter. 

-No,  poor,  dear  woman, — that  could  not  have 

been.  But  I  am  dropping  one  of  my  internal  tears 
for  you,  with  this  pleasant  smile  on  my  face  all  the 
time. 

The  great  mystery  of  God's  providence  is  the  per- 
mitted crushing  out  of  flowering  instincts.  Life  is 
maintained  by  the  respiration  of  oxygen  and  of  sen- 
timents. In  the  long  catalogue  of  scientific  cruelties 
there  is  hardly  anything  quite  so  painful  to  think  of 
as  that  experiment  of  putting  an  animal  under  the 
bell  of  an  air-pump  and  exhausting  the  air  from  it. 
[I  never  saw  the  accursed  trick  performed.  Laus 
Deo!}  There  comes  a  time  when  the  souls  of  hu- 
man beings,  women,  perhaps,  more  even  than  men, 
begin  to  faint  for  the  atmosphere  of  the  affections 
they  were  made  to  breathe.  Then  it  is  that  Society 
places  its  transparent  bell-glass  over  the  young 
woman  who  is  to  be  the  subject  of  one  of  its  fatal 
experiments.  The  element  by  which  only  the  heart 
lives  is  sucked  out  of  her  crystalline  prison.  "Watch 
her  through  its  transparent  walls ; — her  bosom  is 
heaving;  but  it  is  in  a  vacuum.  "Death  is  no  riddle, 


354   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

compared  to  this.  I  remember  a  poor  girl's  story  in 
the  "Book  of  Martyrs."  The  "dry-pan  and  the 
gradual  fire"  were  the  images  that  frightened  her 
most.  How  many  have  withered  and  wasted  under 
as  slow  a  torment  in  the  walls  of  that  larger  Inquisi- 
tion which  we  call  Civilization ! 

Yes,  my  surface-thought  laughs  at  you,  you  fool- 
ish, plain,  overdressed,  mincing,  cheaply-organized, 
self-saturated  young  person,  whoever  you  may  be, 
now  reading  this, — little  thinking  you  are  what  I 
describe,  and  in  blissful  unconsciousness  that  you 
are  destined  to  the  lingering  asphyxia  of  soul  which 
is  the  lot  of  such  multitudes  worthier  than  yourself. 
But  it  is  only  my  surface-thought  which  laughs.  For 
that  great  procession  of  the  UNLOVED,  who  not  only 
wear  the  crown  of  thorns,  but  must  hide  it  under  the 
locks  of  brown  or  gray, — under  the  snowy  cap,  under 
the  chilling  turban, — hide  it  even  from  themselves, — 
perhaps  never  know  they  wear  it,  though  it  kills 
them, — there  is  no  depth  of  tenderness  in  my  nature 
that  Pity  has  not  sounded.  Somewhere, — some- 
where,— love  is  in  store  for  them, — the  universe  must 
not  be  allowed  to  fool  them  so  cruelly.  What  in- 
finite pathos  in  the  small,  half-unconscious  artifices 
by  which  unattractive  young  persons  seek  to  recom- 
mend themselves  to  the  favor  of  those  towards  whom 
our  dear  sisters,  the  unloved,  like  the  rest,  are  im- 
pelled by  their  God-given  instincts  ! 

Read  what  the  singing- women — one  to  ten  thou- 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.    355 

sand  of  the  suffering  women — tell  us,  and  think  of 
the  griefs  that  die  unspoken !  Nature  is  in  earnest 
when  she  makes  a  woman ;  and  there  are  women 
enough  lying  in  the  next  churchyard  with  very  com- 
monplace blue  slate-stones  at  their  head  and  feet,  for 
whom  it  was  just  as  true  that  "all  sounds  of  life 
assumed  one  tone  of  love,"  as  for  Letitia  Landon, 
of  whom  Elizabeth  Browning  said  it ;  but  she  could 
give  words  to  her  grief,  and  they  could  not. — Will 
you  hear  a  few  stanzas  of  mine? 

THE  VOICELESS. 

WE  count  the  broken  lyres  that  rest 

Where  the  sweet  wailing  singers  slumber, — 
But  o'er  their  silent  sister's  breast 

The  wild  flowers  who  will  stoop  to  number  ? 
A  few  can  touch  the  magic  string, 

And  noisy  Fame  is  proud  to  win  them  ;  — 
Alas  for  those  that  never  sing, 

But  die  with  all  their  music  in  them ! 

Nay,  grieve  not  for  the  dead  alone 

Whose  song  has  told  their  hearts'  sad  story, — 
Weep  for  the  voiceless,  who  have  known 

The  cross  without  the  crown  of  glory ! 
Not  where  Leucadian  breezes  sweep 

O'er  Sappho's  memory-haunted  billow, 
But  where  the  glistening  night-dews  weep 

On  nameless  sorrow's  churchyard  pillow. 

O  hearts  that  break  and  give  no  sign 
Save  whitening  lip  and  fading  tresses, 


356   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

Till  Death  pours  out  his  cordial  wine 

Slow-dropped  from  Misery's  crushing  presses, — 

If  singing  breath  or  echoing  chord 
To  every  hidden  pang  were  given, 

What  endless  melodies  were  poured, 
As  sad  as  earth,  as  sweet  as  heaven  ! 

I  hope  that  our  landlady's  daughter  is  not  so  badly 
off,  after  all.  That  young  man  from  another  city, 
who  made  the  remark  which  you  remember  about 
Boston  State-house  and  Boston  folks,  has  appeared 
at  our  table  repeatedly  of  late,  and  has  seemed  to 
me  rather  attentive  to  this  young  lady.  Only  last 
evening  I  saw  him  leaning  over  her  while  she  was 
playing  the  accordion, — indeed,  I  undertook  to  join 
them  in  a  song,  and  got  as  far  as  "  Come  rest  in  this 
boo-oo,"  when,  my  voice  getting  tremulous,  I  turned 
off,  as  one  steps  out  of  a  procession,  and  left  the 
basso  and  soprano  to  finish  it.  I  see  no  reason  why 
this  young  woman  should  not  be  a  very  proper 
match  for  a  man  that  laughs  about  Boston  State- 
house.  He  can't  be  very  particular. 

The  young  fellow  whom  I  have  so  often  men- 
tioned was  a  little  free  in  his  remarks,  but  very  good- 
natured. — Sorry  to  have  you  go, — he  said. — School- 
rna'am  made  a  mistake  not  to  wait  for  me.  Haven't 
taken  anything  but  mournin'  fruit  at  breakfast  since 

I  heard  of  it. Mourning-  fruit, — said  I, — what's 

that? Huckleberries  and  blackberries, — said  he; 

— couldn't  eat  in  colors,  raspberries,  currants,  and 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   ^357 

such,  after  a  solemn  thing  like  this  happening. — The 
conceit  seemed  to  please  the  young  fellow.  If  you 
will  believe  it,  when  we  came  down  to  breakfast  the 
next  morning,  he  had  carried  it  out  as  follows.  You 
know  those  odious  little  "  saas-plates  "  that  figure 
so  largely  at  boarding-houses,  and  especially  at  tav- 
erns, into  which  a  strenuous  attendant  female  trowels 
little  dabs,  sombre  of  tint  and  heterogeneous  of  com- 
position, which  it  makes  you  feel  homesick  to  look 
at,  and  into  which  you  poke  the  elastic  coppery  tea- 
spoon with  the  air  of  a  cat  dipping  her  foot  into  a 
wash-tub, — (not  that  I  mean  to  say  anything  against 
them,  for,  when  they  are  of  tinted  porcelain  or  starry 
many-faceted  crystal,  and  hold  clean  bright  berries, 
or  pale  virgin  honey,  or  "lucent  syrups  tinct  with 
cinnamon,"  and  the  teaspoon  is  of  white  silver,  with 
the  Tower-stamp,  solid,  but  not  brutally  heavy, — as 
people  in  the  green  stage  of  millionism  will  have 
them, — I  can  dally  with  their  amber  semi-fluids  or 
glossy  spherules  without  a  shiver,) — you  know  these 
small,  deep  dishes,  I  say.  When  we  came  down  the 
next  morning,  each  of  these  (two  only  excepted)  was 
covered  with  a  broad  leaf.  On  lifting  this,  each 
boarder  found  a  small  heap  of  solemn  black  huckle- 
berries. But  one  of  those  plates  held  red  currants, 
and  was  covered  with  a  red  rose ;  the  other  held 
white  currants,  and  was  covered  with  a  white  rose. 
There  was  a  laugh  at  this  at  first,  and  then  a  short 
silence,  and  I  noticed  that  her  lip  trembled,  and  the 


358        THE  AUTOCRAT   OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

old  gentleman  opposite  was  in  trouble  to  get  a1  his 
bandanna  handkerchief. 

"  What  was  the  use  in  waiting  ?  We  should 

be  too  late  for  Switzerland,  that  season,  if  we  waited 
much  longer." — The  hand  I  held  trembled  in  mine, 
and  the  eyes  fell  meekly,  as  Esther  bowed  herself 
before  the  feet  of  Ahasuerus. — 'She  had  been  reading 
that  chapter,  for  she  looked  up, — if  there  was  a  film 
of  moisture  over  her  eyes  there  was  also  the  faintest 
shadow  of  a  distant  smile  skirting  her  lips,  but  not 
enough  to  accent  the  dimples, — and  said,  in  her 
pretty,  still  way, — "  If  it  please  the  king,  and  if  I 
have  found  favor  in  his  sight,  and  the  thing  seem 
right  before  the  king,  and  I  be  pleasing  in  his 
eyes " 

I  don't  remember  what  King  Ahasuerus  did  or 
said  when  Esther  got  just  to  that  point  of  her  soft, 
humble  words, — but  I  know  what  I  did.  That 
quotation  from  Scripture  was  cut  short,  anyhow. 
We  came  to  a  compromise  on  the  great  question, 
and  the  time  was  settled  for  the  last  day  of  summer. 

In  the  mean  time,  I  talked  on  with  our  boarders, 
much  as  usual,  as  you  may  see  by  what  I  have  re- 
ported. I  must  say,  I  was  pleased  with  a  certain 
tenderness  they  all  showed  toward  us,  after  the  first 
excitement  of  the  news  was  over.  It  came  out  in 
trivial  matters, — but  each  one,  in  his  or  her  way,  mani- 
fested kindness.  Our  landlady,  for  instance,  when 
we  had  chickens,  sent  the  liver  instead  of  the  giz- 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   359 

zardj  with  the  wing,  for  the  schoolmistress.  This 
was  not  an  accident;  the  two  are  never  mistaken, 
though  some  landladies  appear  as  if  they  did  not 
know  the  difference.  The  whole  of  the  company 
were  even  more  respectfully  attentive  to  my  remarks 
than  usual.  There  was  no  idle  punning,  and  very 
little  winking  on  the  part  of  that  lively  young  gentle- 
man who,  as  the  reader  may  remember,  occasionally 
interposed  some  playful  question  or  remark,  which 
could  hardly  be  considered  relevant, — except  when 
the  least  allusion  was  made  to  matrimony,  when  he 
would  look  at  the  landlady's  daughter,  and  wink 
with  both  sides  of  his  face,  until  she  would  ask  what 
he  was  pokin'  his  fun  at  her  for,  and  if  he  wasn't 
ashamed  of  himself.  In  fact,  they  all  behaved  very 
handsomely,  so  that  I  really  felt  sorry  at  the  thought 
of  leaving  my  boarding-house. 

I  suppose  you  think,  that,  because  I  lived  at  a 
plain  widow-woman's  plain  table,  I  was  of  course 
more  or  less  infirm  in  point  of  worldly  fortune.  You 
may  not  be  sorry  to  learn,  that,  though  not  what 
great  merchants  call  very  rich,  I  was  comfortable, — 
comfortable, — so  that  most  of  those  moderate  luxu- 
ries I  described  in  my  verses  on  Contentment — most 
of  them,  I  say — were  within  our  reach,  if  we  chose  to 
have  them.  But  I  found  out  that  the  schoolmistress 
had  a  vein  of  charity  about  her,  which  had  hitherto 
been  worked  on  a  small  silver  and  copper  basis, 
which  made  her  think  less,  perhaps,  of  luxuries 


360   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

than  even  I  did, — modestly  as  I  have  expressed 
my  wishes. 

It  is  a  rather  pleasant  thing  to  tell  a  poor  young 
woman,  whom  one  has  contrived  to  win  without 
showing  his  rent-roll,  that  she  has  found  what  the 
world  values  so  highly,  in  following  the  lead  of  her 
affections.  That  was  an  enjoyment  I  was  now 
ready  for. 

I  began  abruptly  : — Do  you  know  that  you  are  a 
rich  young  person  ? 

I  know  that  I  am  very  rich, — she  said. — Heaven 
has  given  me  more  than  I  ever  asked ;  for  I  had  not 
thought  love  was  ever  meant  for  me. 

It  was  a  woman's  confession,  and  her  voice  fell  to 
a  whisper  as  it  threaded  the  last  words. 

I  don't  mean  that, — I  said, — you  blessed  little 
saint  and  seraph  ! — if  there's  an  angel  missing  in  the 
New  Jerusalem,  inquire  for  her  at  this  boarding- 
house  ! — I  don't  mean  that !  I  mean  that  I — that  is, 
you — am — are — confound  it! — I  mean  that  you'll 
be  what  most  people  call  a  lady  of  fortune. — And  1 
looked  full  in  her  eyes  for  the  effect  of  the  announce- 
ment. 

There  wasn't  any.  She  said  she  was  thankful 
that  I  had  what  would  save  me  from  drudgery,  and 
that  some  other  time  I  should  tell  her  about  it. — 1 
never  made  a  greater  failure  in  an  attempt  to  pro- 
duce a  sensation. 

So   the   last  day  of  summer   came.     It  was  our 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   361 

choice  to  go  to  the  church,  but  we  had  a  kind  of 
reception  at  the  boarding-house.  The  presents  were 
all  arranged,  and  among  them  none  gave  more  plea- 
sure than  the  modest  tributes  of  our  fellow- boarders, 
— for  there  was  not  one,  I  believe,  who  did  not  send 
something.  The  landlady  would  insist  on  making 
an  elegant  bride-cake,  with  her  own  hands ;  to  which 
Master  Benjamin  Franklin  wished  to  add  certain 
embellishments  out  of  his  private  funds, — namely,  a 
Cupid  in  a  mouse-trap,  done  in  white  sugar,  and 
two  miniature  flags  with  the  stars  and  stripes,  which 
had  a  very  pleasing  effect,  I  assure  you.  The  land- 
lady's daughter  sent  a  richly  bound  copy  of  Tupper's 
Poems.  On  a  blank  leaf  was  the  following,  written 
in  a  very  delicate  and  careful  hand  : — 

Presented  to  ...  by  ... 

On  the  eve  ere  her  union  in  holy  matrimony. 
May  sunshine  ever  beam  o'er  her ! 

Even  the  poor  relative  thought  she  must  do  some- 
thing, and  sent  a  copy  of  "  The  Whole  Duty  of 
Man,"  bound  in  very  attractive  variegated  sheep- 
skin, the  edges  nicely  marbled.  From  the  divinity- 
student  came  the  loveliest  English  edition  of 
"  Keble's  Christian  Year."  I  opened  it,  when  it 
came,  to  the  Fourth  Sunday  in  Lent,  and  read  that 
angelic  poem,  sweeter  than  anything  I  can  remem- 
ber since  Xavier's  "  My  God,  I  love  thee." 1  am 

not  a  Churchman, — I  don't  believe  in  planting  oaks 
in  flower-pots, — but  such   a  poem  as    "  The  Rose- 
is 


362   THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

bud  "  makes  one's  heart  a  proselyte  to  the  culture  it 
grows  from.  Talk  about  it  as  much  as  you  like, — 
one's  breeding  shows  itself  nowhere  more  than 
in  his  religion.  A  man  should  be  a  gentleman  in 
his  hymns  and  prayers;  the  fondness  for  "scenes," 
among  vulgar  saints,  contrasts  so  meanly  with 

that— 

"  God  only  and  good  angels  look 
Behind  the  blissful  scene," — 

and  that  other, — 

"  He  could  not  trust  his  melting  soul 
But  in  his  Maker's  sight," — 

that  I  hope  some  of  them  will  see  this,  and  read  the 
poem,  and  profit  by  it 

My  laughing  and  winking  young  friend  under- 
took to  procure  and  arrange  the  flowers  for  the  table, 
and  did  it  with  immense  zeal.  I  never  saw  him 
look  happier  than  when  he  came  in,  his  hat  saucily 
on  one  side,  and  a  cheroot  in  his  mouth,  with  a 
huge  bunch  of  tea-roses,  which  he  said  were  for 
"  Madam." 

One  of  the  last  things  that  came  was  an  old 
square  box,  smelling  of  camphor,  tied  and  sealed. 
It  bore,  in  faded  ink,  the  marks,  "  Calcutta,  1805." 
On  opening  it,  we  found  a  white  Cashmere  shawl, 
with  a  very  brief  note  from  the  dear  old  gentleman 
opposite,  saying  that  he  had  kept  this  some  years, 
thinking  he  might  want  it,  and  many  more,  not 
knowing  what  to  do  with  it, — that  he  had  never 


THE  AUTOCRAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.   363 

seen  it  unfolded  since  he  was  a  young  supercargo, — 
and  now,  if  she  would  spread  it  on  her  shoulders,  it 
would  make  him  feel  young  to  look  at  it. 

Poor  Bridget,  or  Biddy,  our  red-armed  maid  of 
all  work !  What  must  she  do  but  buy  a  small  copper 
breast-pin  and  put  it  under  "  Schoolma'am's  "  plate 
that  morning,  at  breakfast  ?  And  Schoolma'am 
would  wear  it, — though  I  made  her  cover  it,  as  well 
as  I  could,  with  a  tea-rose. 

It  was  my  last  breakfast  as  a  boarder,  and  I  could 
not  leave  them  in  utter  silence. 

Good-by, — I  said, — my  dear  friends,  one  and  all  of 
you !  I  have  been  long  with  you,  and  I  find  it  hard 
parting.  I  have  to  thank  you  for  a  thousand  coiJrte- 
sies,  and  above  all  for  the  patience  and  indulgence 
with  which  you  have  listened  to  me  when  I  have 
tried  to  instruct  or  amuse  you.  My  friend  the  Pro- 
fessor (who,  as  well  as  my  friend  the  Poet,  is  una- 
voidably absent  on  this  interesting  occasion)  has 
given  me  reason  to  suppose  that  he  would  occupy 
my  empty  chair  about  the  first  of  January  next.  If 
he  comes  among  you,  be  kind  to  him,  as  you  have 
been  to  me.  May  the  Lord  bless  you  all ! — And  we 
shook  hands  all  round  the  table. 

Half  an  hour  afterwards  the  breakfast  things  and 
the  cloth  were  gone.  I  looked  up  and  down  the 
length  of  the  bare  boards  over  which  I  had  so  often 

uttered  my  sentiments  and  experiences — and 

Yes,  I  am  a  man,  like  another. 


364   THE  AUTOCKAT  OF  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

All  sadness  vanished,  as,  in  the  midst  of  these  old 
friends  of  mine,  whom  you  know,  and  others  a  little 
more  up  in  the  world,  perhaps,  to  whom  I  have  not 
introduced  you,  I  took  the  schoolmistress  before  the 
altar  from  the  hands  of  the  old  gentleman  who  used 
to  sit  opposite,  and  who  would  insist  on  giving  her 
away. 

And  now  we  two  are  walking  the  long  path  in 
peace  together.  The  "  schoolmistress "  finds  her 
skill  in  teaching  called  for  again,  without  going 
abroad  to  seek  little  scholars.  Those  visions  of 
mine  have  all  come  true. 

I  hope  you  all  love  me  none  the  less  for  anything 
I  have  told  you.  Farewell ! 


THE   END. 


INDEX. 


A. 

ABUSE,  all  good  attempts  get,  90. 

./ESTIVATION,  307. 

AFFINITIES  and  antipathies,  256. 

AGE,  softening  effects  of,  91 ;  begins 
when  fire  goes  down,  174 ;  Roman 
age  of  enlistment,  174 ;  its  changes 
a  string  of  insults,  177. 

A  GOOD  TIME  GOING,  259. 

AIR-PUMP,  animal  under,  353. 

ALBUM  VERSES,  17. 

ALPS,  effect  of  looking  at,  311. 

AMERICAN,  the  Englishman  rein- 
forced, (a  noted  person  thinks,) 
278. 

ANALOGIES,  power  of  seeing,  93. 

ANATOMIST'S  HYMN,  THE,  202. 

ANGLO-SAXONS  die  out  in  America, 
(Dr.  Knox  thinks,)  278. 

ANNIVERSARIES  dreaded  by  the 
Professor,  and  why,  258. 

ARGUMENTS,  what  are  those  which 
spoil  conversation,  11. 

ARISTOCRACY,  the  forming  Ameri- 
can, 303 ;  pluck  the  back-bone  of, 
304. 

ARTISTS  apt  to  act  mechanically  on 
their  brains,  216. 

ASSESSORS,  Heaven's,  effect  of  meet- 
ing one  of  them,  104. 

ASYLUM,  the,  288. 

AUDIENCE,  average  intellect  of,  160 ; 
aspect  of,  161;  a  compound  verte- 
brate, 162. 

AUDIENCES  very  nearly  alike,  161; 
good  feeling  and  intelligence  of, 
163. 

AUTHOR  does  not  hate  anybody, 
255. 

AUTHORS,  jockeying  of,  41 ;  purr  if 
skilfully  handled,  55;  ashamed  of 
being  funny,  55;  hate  those  who 
call  them  droll,  55 ;  always  praise 
after  fifty,  91. 

AUTOMATIC  principles  appear  more 


prevalent  the  more  we  study,  95 ; 
mental  actions,  154. 
AVERAGES,  their  awful  uniformity, 
161. 


B. 


BABIES,  old,  177. 

BACON,  Lord,  317. 

BALZAC,  172,  317. 

BEAUTIES,  vulgar,  their  virtuous  in- 
dignation on  being  looked  at,  225. 

BELIEFS  like  ancient  drinking- 
glasses,  17. 

BELL-GLASS,  young  woman  under, 
353. 

BENICIA  BOY,  not  challenged  by  the 
Professor,  and  why,  199. 

BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN,  the  landla- 
dy's son,  14,  59,  64,  80,  97,  132, 
165,  156,  287,  361. 

BERKSHIRE,  274,  286,  310. 

BERNE,  leap  from  the  platform  at, 
328. 

BLAKE,  Mr.,  his  Jesse  Rural,  102. 

BLONDES,  two  kinds  of,  212. 

"  BLOODED  "  horses,  40. 

BOAT,  the  Professor's  own,  descrip- 
tion of,  194. 

BOATING,  the  Professor  describes 
his,  190. 

BOATS,  the  Professor's  fleet  of,  189. 

BOOKS,  hating,  69 ;  society  a  strong 
solution  of,  70;  the  mind  some- 
times feel  above  them,  151;  a 
man's  and  a  woman's  reading,321. 

BORES,  all  men  are,  except  when  we 
want  them,  7. 

BOSTON,  seven  wise  men  of,  their 
sayings,  142. 

BOWIE-KNIFE,  the  Roman  gladius 
modified,  21. 

BRAIN,  upper  and  lower  stories  of, 
207;  attempts  to  reach  mechani- 
cally, 216. 

BRAINS,  seventy-year  clocks,  214; 


366 


INDEX. 


containing  ovarian  eggs,  how  to 

know  them,  227. 
BRIDGET  becomes  a  caryatid,  113; 

presents  a  breast-pin,  363. 
BROWNE,    Sir    Thomas,    admirable 

sentiment  of,  105. 
BROWNING,  Elizabeth,  355. 
BRUCE' s     Address,     alteration    of, 

52. 

BULBOUS-HEADED  people,  7. 
BUNKER-HILL    monument,    rocking 

of,  331. 
BYRON,  his  line  about  striking  the 

electric  chain,  77. 


C. 


CACHE,  children  make  instinctively, 

237. 
CALAMITIES,   grow   old  rapidly  in 

pi'oportion  to  then*  magnitude,  35 ; 

the   recollection  of  returns   after 

the  first  sleep  as  if  new,  35. 
CALCULATING   machine,  9;   power, 

least  human  of  qualities,  9. 
CALL  HIM  NOT  OLD,  201. 
CAMPBELL,  misquotation  of,  79. 
CANARY-BIRD,     swimming    move- 
ments of,  96. 
CANT  terms,  use  of,  299. 
CARLYLE,    his  article  on  Bos  well, 

328. 
CARPENTER'S  bench,  Author  works 

at,  207. 

CHAMBERS  Street,  318. 
CHAMOUNI,  311. 
CHARACTERISTICS,  Carlyle's  article, 

61. 

CHARLES  Street,  318. 
CHAUCER  compared  to  an  Easter- 

Beurre",  92. 

CHESS-PLAYING,  conversation  com- 
pared to,  72. 
CHILDREN,       superstitious       little 

wretches  and  spiritual  cowards, 

237. 
CHLOROFORM,  Professor,  the,  under, 

341. 
CHKYSO-ARISTOCRACY,     our,     the 

weak  point  in,  304. 
CICERO     de     Senectute,     Professor 

reads,  173;  his  treatise  de  Senec- 

1ute,  180. 
CINCINNATI,  how  not  to  pronounce, 

333. 

CIRCLES,  intellectual,  310. 
CITIES,  some  of  the  smaller   ones 


charming,  146 ;  leaking  of  nature 
into,  319. 

CLERGY  rarely  hear  sermons,  31. 

CLERGYMEN,  their  patients  not  al- 
ways truthful,  97. 

CLOCK  of  the  Andover  Seminary, 
333. 

CLOSET  full  of  sweet  smells,  87. 

CLUBS,  advantages  of,  71. 

COAT,  constructed  on  a  priori 
grounds,  76. 

COBB,  Sylvanus,  Jr.  18. 

COFFEE,  287,  289. 

COLD-BLOODED  creatures,  149. 

COLERIDGE,  his  remark  on  liter- 
ary mens'  needing  a  profession, 
207. 

COLISEUM,  visit  to,  327. 

COMET,  the  late,  26. 

COMMENCEMENT  day,  like  the  start 
for  the  Derby,  107. 

COMMON  sense,  as  we  understand  it, 
161. 

COMMUNICATIONS  received  by  the 
Author,  334. 

COMPANY,  the  sad,  288. 

CONCEIT  bred  by  little  localized 
powers  and  narrow  streaks  of 
knowledge,  10;  natural  to  the 
mind  as  a  centre  to  a  circle,  10; 
uses  of,  10;  makes  people  cheer- 
ful, 11. 

CONSTITUTION,  American  female, 
47;  in  choice  of  summer  resi- 
dence, 309. 

CONTENTMENT,  312. 

CONTROVERSY,  hydrostatic  paradox 
of,  130. 

CONUNDRUMS  indulged  in  by  the 
company,  293;  rebuked  by  the 
Author,  294. 

CONVERSATION,  very  serious  mat- 
ter, 6 ;  with  some  persons  weaken- 
ing, 6;  great  faults  of,  11;  spoiled 
by  certain  kinds  of  argument,  11; 
a  code  of  finalities  necessary  to, 
12 ;  compared  to  Italian  game  of 
mora,  17;  shapes  our  thoughts, 
30;  Blair-ing  of  reported,  44;  one 
of  the  fine  arts,  57 ;  compared  to 
chess-playing,  72 ;  depends  on  how 
much  is.  taken  for  granted,  72 ;  of 
Lecturers,  73. 

COOKESON,  William,  of  All-Souls' 
College,  98. 

COPLEY,  his  portrait  of  the  mer- 
chant-uncle, 23;  of  the  great- 
grandmother,  23. 


INDEX. 


367 


M  CORRESPONDENT,  our  Foreign," 
133. 

COUNTERPARTS  of  people  in  many 
different  cities,  159. 

COWPEH,  213 ;  his  lines  on  his  moth- 
er's portrait,  329 ;  his  lines  on  the 
"  Royal  George,"  329. 

CREED,  the  Author's,  100. 

CRINOLINE,  Otaheitan,  21. 

CROW  and  king-bird,  32. 

CURLS,  flat  circular  on  temples,  20. 


D. 


DANDIES,  uses  of,  300;  illustrious 
ones,  301,  302 ;  men  are  born,  302. 

DAVIDSON,  Lucretia  and  Margaret, 
213. 

DEACON'S  MASTERPIECE,  THE,  295. 

DEATH  as  a  form  of  rhetoric,  152 ; 
introduction  to,  243. 

DEEKFIELD,  elm  in,  834. 

DEVIZES,  woman  struck  dead  at, 
329. 

DIGHTON  ROCK,  inscription  on,  287. 

DIMENSIONS,  three  of  solids,  hand- 
ling ideas  as  if  they  had,  95. 

DIVINITY,  doctors  of,  many  people 
qualified  to  be,  32. 

DIVINITY  STUDENT,  the,  1,  47,  93, 
94,  97,  100,  114,  125,  142,  143,  151, 
155,  211,  217,  223,  228,  236,  256, 
267,  268,  293,  301,  306,  361. 

DOCTOR,  old,  his  catalogue  of  books 
for  light  reading,  181. 

DRINKING-GLASSES,  ancient,  beliefs 
like,  17. 

DROLL,  authors  dislike  to  be  called, 
55. 

DRUNKENNESS  often  a  punishment, 
220. 

DULL  persons  great  comforts  at 
times,  6;  happiness  of  finding  we 
are,  69. 


E. 


EARS,  voluntary  movement  of,  10. 

EARTH,  not  ripe  yet,  26. 

EARTHQUAKE,  to' launch  Leviathan, 
80. 

EBLIS,  hall  of,  288. 

EDITORS,  appeals  to  their  benevo- 
lence, 340;  must  get  calluses,  341. 

EDUCATION,  professional,  most  of 
our  people  have  had,  31. 

EGGS,  Ovarian,  intellectual,  226. 


ELM,  American,  271;  the  great 
Johnston,  272 ;  Hatfield,  274;  Shef- 
field, 274;  West  Springfield,  274; 
Pittsfield,  275 ;  Newburyport,  275 ; 
Cohasset,  275 ;  English  and  Amer- 
ican, comparison  of,  277. 

ELMS,  Springfield,  273;  first  class, 
274;  second  class,  275:  Mr.  Pad- 
dock's row  of,  278;  in  Andover, 
332,  335 ;  in  Norwich,  333 ;  in  Deer- 
field,  335 ;  in  Lancaster,  two  very 
large  ones.  See  LANCASTER. 

EMOTIONS  strike  us  obliquely,  327. 

EPITHETS  follow  isothermal  lines, 
130. 

ERASMUS,  colloquies  of,  98;  naufra- 
gium  or  shipwreck  of,  98. 

ERECTILE  heads,  men  of  genius 
with,  7. 

ESSAYS,  diluted,  74. 

ESSEX  Street,  318. 

ESTHER,  Queen,  and  Ahasuerus,  358. 

ETERNITY,  remembering  one's  self 
in,  233. 

EVERLASTING,  the  herb,  its  sugges- 
tions, 85. 

EXERCISE,  scientifically  examined, 
193. 

Ex  PEDE  HERCULEM,  124. 

EXPERIENCE,  a  solemn  fowl;  her 
eggs,  317. 

EXPERTS  in  crime  and  suffering,  37. 


F. 


FACES,  negative,  162. 

FACTS,  horror  of  generous  minds  for 

what  are  commonly  called,  5;  the 

brute  beasts  of  the  intelligence,  5; 

men  of,  164. 
FAMILY,  man  of,  23. 
FANCIES,  youthful,  312. 
FAREWELL,  the  Author's,  364. 
FAULT  found  with  every  thing  worth 

saying,  127. 
FEELING  that  we  have  been  in  the 

same  condition  before,  81 ;  modes 

of  explaining  it,  82,  83. 
FEELINGS,  every  person's,  have  a 

front-door  and  a  side-door,  147. 
FIFTY  cents,  a  figure  of  rhetoric. 

306. 

FLASH  phraseology,  299. 
FLAVOR,  nothing  knows  its  own,  61. 
FLEET  of  our  companions,  106. 
FLOWERS,  why  poets  talk  so  much 

of,  266. 


368 


INDEX. 


FRANKLIN-PLACE,    front-yards    in, 

318. 
FRENCH  exercise,  Benj.  Franklin's, 

64,  156. 
FRIENDS,  shown  up  by  story-tellers, 

68. 
FRIENDSHIP  does  not  authorize  one 

to  say  disagreeable  things. 
FRONT-DOOR  and   side-door  to  our 

feelings,  147. 
FRUIT,     green,    intellectual,    these 

United  States  a  great  market  for, 

305;  mourning,  356. 
FUEL,  carbon  and  bread  and  cheese 

are  equally,  179. 
FUNNY,  authors  ashamed  of  being, 

65. 
"  FUST-KATE  "  and  other  vulgarism, 

31. 


G. 


GEESE  for  swans,  319. 

GENIUS,  a  weak  flavor  of,  3 ;  the  ad- 
vent of,  a  surprise,  61. 

GIFT-ENTERPRISES,  Nature's,  61. 

GILBERT,  the  French  poet,  213. 

GIL  BLAS,  the  archbishop  served 
him  right,  56;  motto  from,  230. 

GILPIN,  Daddy,  270. 

GIRLS'  story  in  "  Book  of  Martyrs," 
354;  two  young,  their  fall  'from 
gallery,  327'. 

GIZZARD  and  Liver  never  con- 
founded, 359. 

GOOD-BY,  the  Author's,  363. 

GRAMMAR,  higher  law  in,  43. 

GRAVESTONES,  transplanting  of, 
279. 

GREEN  fruit,  intellecttaal,  305. 

GROUND-BAIT,  literary,  41. 


H. 


HABIT,  what  its  essence  is,  179. 
HAND,  the  great  wooden,  328. 
"  HAOW?  "  whether  final,  125. 
HAT,  the  old  gentleman  opposite's 

white,  204;  the  author's  youthful 

Leghorn,  205. 

HATS,  aphorisms  concerning,  205. 
HEARTS,  inscriptions  on,  287. 
HERESY,    burning  for,   experts   in, 

would  be  found  in  any  large  city, 

37. 
HISTORIAN,  the  quotation  from,  on 

punning,  14. 


HONEY,  emptying  the  jug  of,  20. 

HORSES,  what  they  feed  on,  192. 

HOSPITALITY  depends  on  latitude, 
350. 

HOT  day,  sounds  of,  350. 

Hotel  de  f  Univers  et  des  Etats  Unis, 
144. 

Hous ATONIC,  the  Professor's  dwell- 
ing by,  285. 

HOUSES,  dying  out  of,  281 ;  killed  by 
commercial  smashes,  281;  shape 
themselves  upon  our  natures,  282. 

HOUSE,  the  body  we  live  in,  281; 
Irishman's  at  Cambridgeport.  22. 

HOUYNHNM  Gazette,  265. 

HUCKLEBERRIES,  hail-storm  of,  268. 

HULL,  how  Pope's  line  is  read  there, 
147. 

HUM  A,  story  of,  8. 

HUMANITIES,  cumulative,  25. 

HYACINTH,  blue,  265,  267. 

HYSTERICS,  101. 


I. 


ICE  in  wine-glass,  tinkling  like  cow- 
bells, 87. 

IDEAS,  age  of,  in  our  memories,  35 ; 
handling  them  as  if  they  had  the 
three  dimensions  of  solids,  95. 

IMPONDERABLES  move  the  world, 
156. 

IMPROMPTUS,  18. 

INHERITED  traits  show  very  early, 
226. 

INSANITY,  the  logic  of  an  accurate 
mind  overtasked,  46;  becomes  a 
duty  under  certain  circumstances, 
47. 

INSTINCTS,  crushing  out  of,  353. 

INTEMPERANCE,  the  Author  dis- 
courses of,  217. 

INTERMITTENT,  poetical,  289. 

INVENTIVE  Power,  economically 
used,  277, 

IRIS,  cut  the  yellow  hair,  79. 

IRISHMAN'S  house  at  Cambridge- 
port,  22. 

ISLAND,  the,  43. 


J. 


JAILERS  and  undertakers  magnetize 

people,  36. 
JAUNDICE,  as  a  token  of  affection, 

152. 


INDEX. 


369 


JOHN  and  Thomas,  their  dialogue  of 
six  persons,  59. 

JOHN,,  the  young  fellow  called,  60, 
72,  81,  88,'  114,  128,  201,  216,  223, 
224,  241,  254,  268,  293,  300,  306, 
356,  362. 

JOHNSON,  Dr.,  his  remark  on  at- 
tacks, 129;  lines  to  Thrale,  174. 

JUDGMENT,  standard  of,  how  to  es- 
tablish, 16. 

K. 

KEATS,  213. 

KEBLE,  his  poem,  361. 

"  KEKRIDGE,"  and  other  character- 
istic expressions,  124. 

KIRKE  WHITE,  214. 

KNOWLEDGE,  little  streaks  of  spe- 
cialized, breed  conceit,  10. 

KNUCKLES,  marks  of  on  broken 
glass,  123. 


LADY,  the  real,  not  sensitive  if  looked 
at,  225. 

LADY-BOARDER,  the,  with  auto- 
graph-book, 6. 

LANDLADY,  58,  88,  122,  352,  361. 

LANDLADY'S  daughter,  18,  20,  63, 
158,  159,  257,  268,  356,  361. 

LATTER-DAY  WARNINGS,  26. 

LAUGHTER  and  tears,  wind  and 
water-power,  101. 

LECTURERS,  grooves  in  their  minds, 
73;  talking  in  streaks  out  of  their 
lectures,  73;  get  homesick,  163; 
attacks  upon,  351. 

LECTURES,  feelings  connected  with 
their  delivery,  159 ;  popular,  what 
they  should 'have,  160;  old,  160; 
what  they  ought  to  be,  161. 

LEIBNITZ,  remark  of,  1. 

Les  Societes  Polyphysiophilosophiques, 
156. 

LETTER  to  an  ambitious  young  man, 
335. 

LETTERS  with  various  requests,  78. 

LEVIATHAN,  launch  of,  80. 

LIFE,  experience  of,  32;  compared 
to  transcript  of  it,  66;  compared 
to  books,  154;  divisible  into  fifteen 
periods,  177  ;  early,  revelations 
concerning,  234 ;  its  experiences, 
322. 

LILAC  leaf-buds,  265,  267. 

LION,  the  leaden  one  at  Alnwick,  828. 
24 


LISTON  thought  himself  a  tragic 
actor,  103. 

LITERARY  pickpockets,  57. 

LIVING  TEMPLE,  THE,  202. 

LOCHIEL  rocked  in  cradle  when  old, 
92. 

LOG,  using  old  schoolmates  as,  to 
mark  our  rate  of  sailing,  105. 

LOGICAL  minds,  what  they  do,  15. 

LONG  path,  the,  352;  walking  to- 
gether, 364. 

LANDON,  Letitia,  355. 

LOVE-CAPACITY,  316. 

LOVE,  introduction  to,  244 ;  its  rela- 
tive solubility  in  the  speech  of  men 
and  women,  317. 

LUDICROUS,  a  divine  idea,  104. 

LUNIVERSARY,  return  of,  64. 

LYRIC  conception  hits  like  a  bullet, 
111. 

M. 

MACAULAY-FLOWERS  of  Literature, 
15. 

"  MAGAZINE,  Northern,"  got  up  by 
the  "  Gome-Outers,"  137. 

MAINE,  willows  in,  335. 

MAN  of  family,  23. 

MAP,  photograph  of,  on  the  wall,  283. 

MARE  RUBRUM,  140. 

MARIGOLD,  its  suggestions,  84. 

MATHER,  Cotton,  75,  346. 

MEERSCHAUMS  and  poems  must  be 
kept  and  used,  115,  117. 

MEN,  self-made,  22 ;  all,  love  all  wo- 
men, 257. 

Mesalliance,  dreadful  consequences 
of,  250. 

MIDDLE-AGED  female,  takes  offence, 
33. 

MILLIONISM,  green  stage  of,  357. 

MILTON  compared  to  a  Saint  Ger- 
main-pear, etc.,  92. 

MIND,  automatic  actions  of,  154. 

MINDS,  classification  of,  1;  jerky 
ones  fatiguing,  6 ;  logical,  what 
they  do,  15 ;  calm  and  clear  best 
basis  for  love  and  friendship,  150; 
saturation-point  of,  153. 

MINISTER,  my  old,  his  remarks  on 
want  of  attention,  33. 

MISERY,  a  great  one  puts  a  new 
stamp  on  us,  36. 

MISFORTUNE,  professional  dealers  in, 
36. 

MISPRINTS,  54. 

MOLASSES,  Melasses,  or  Molossa's,  75. 


370 


INDEX. 


MORA,  Italian  game  of  conversation 

compared  to,  17. 
MORALIST,  the  great,  quotation  from 

on  punning,  14. 
MOUNTAINS  and  sea,  308. 
MOURNING  fruit,  356. 
Muo  the  bitten,  232. 
MULIEBRITY  and  femineity  in  voice, 

251. 

MUSA,  290. 

MUSCULAR  powers,  when  they  de- 
cline, 18. 
MUSE,  the,  290. 

MUSICIANS,  odd  movements  of,  95. 
Music,    its    effects    different    from 

thought,  152. 

MUTUAL  Admiration,  Society  of,  2. 
MY  LADY'S  CHEEK,  (verse,)  177. 
MYRTLE  Street,  discovered  by  the 

Professor,  191 ;  description  of,  191 ; 

garden  in,  318. 


N. 


NAHANT,  310. 

NATURE,  Amen  of,  266 ;  leaking  of, 

into  cities,  319. 

NAUTILUS,  THE  CHAMBERED,  110. 
NERVE-PLAYING,  masters  of,  148. 
NERVE-TAPPING,  6. 
NERVE,    olfactory,    connection    of, 

with  brain,  85. 
NEWTON,  his  speech  about  the  child 

and  the  pebbles,  94. 
NORWICH,  elms  in,  333 ;  how  not  to 

pronounce,  333. 
NOVEL,  one,  everybody  has    stuff 

for,  66 ;  why  I  do  not  write,  66. 


0. 


OAK,  its  one  mark  of  supremacy, 

270. 
OCEAN,  the,  two  men  walking  by, 

93. 
OLD  AGE,  starting  point  of,  174;  al- 

legory of,  175;  approach  of,  176; 

habits   the  great    mark  of,   178; 

how  nature  cheats  us   into,  ib.; 

in  the  Professor's  contemporaries, 

185;  remedies  for,  188;  excellent 

remedy  for,  200. 
OLD  GEZTTLEMAK  OPPOSITE,  the,  2, 

59,  68,  97,  112,  201,  204,  206,  228, 

242,  244,  362,  364. 
OLD  MAN,  a  person  startled  when 


he  first  hears  himself  called  so, 
178. 

OLD  MEN,  always  poets  if  they  ever 
have  been,  114. 

OMENS,  of  childhood,  238. 

ONE-HOSS-SHAY,  THE  WONDERFUL, 
295. 

"  OUR  SUMATRA  CORRESPOND- 
ENCE," 134. 


P. 


PAIL,  the  white  pine,  of  water,  232. 

PARALLELISM,  without  identity,  in 
oriental  and  occidental  nature, 
277. 

PARENTHESES,  dismount  the  reader. 
204. 

PARSON  TURELL'S  LEGACY,  345. 

PATH,  the  long,  323. 

PEARS,  men  are  like,  in  coming  to 
maturity,  92. 

PHOSPHORUS,  its  suggestions,  84. 

PHOTOGRAPHS  of  the  Past,  283. 

PHRASES,  complimentary,  applied 
to  authors,  what  determines  them, 
131. 

PIE,  the  young  fellow  treats  disre- 
spectfully, 88 ;  the  Author  takes 
too  large  a  piece  of,  90. 

PIECRUST,  poems,  etc.,  written  un- 
der influence  of,  90. 

PILLAR,  the  Hangman's,  329. 

PINKNEY,  William,  7. 

PIRATES,  Danish,  their  skins  on 
church  doors,  121. 

PLAGIARISM,  Author's  virtuous  dis- 
gust for,  168. 

POCKET-BOOK  fever,  240. 

POEM — with  the  slight  alterations,  53. 

POEMS,  alterations  of,  52;  have  a 
body  and  a  soul,  112;  green  state 
of,  114;  porous  like  meerschaums, 
117 ;  post-prandial,  the  Professor's 
idea  of,  259. 

POET,  my  friend,  the,  111,  146,  200, 
206  et  seq.,  211,  258,  259,  261. 

POETS  love  verses  while  warm  from 
their  minds,  114;  two  kinds  of, 
212;  apt  to  act  mechanically  on 
their  brains,  216. 

POETS  and  artists,  why  like  to  be 
prone  to  abuse  of  stimulants,  221. 

POETASTER  who  has  tasted  type, 
340. 

POETICAL  impulse  external,  112. 

POETRY  uses  white  light  for  its 
main  object,  56. 


INDEX. 


371 


POLISH  lance,  22. 

POOR  relation  in  black  bombazine, 
33,  97,  114,  241,  306,  361. 

POPLAR,  murder  of  one,  271. 

PORT-CHUCK,  his  vivacious  sally, 
205. 

PORTSMOUTH,  how  not  to  pronounce, 
833. 

POWERS,  little  localized,  breed  con- 
ceit, 10. 

PREACHER,  dull,  might  lapse  into 
quasi  heathenism,  31. 

"  PRELUDE,"  the  Professor's,  343. 

PRENTISS,  Dame,  232. 

PRIDE  in  a  woman,  316. 

PRINCE  Rupert's  drops  of  literature, 
42. 

PRINCIPLE,  against  obvious  facts,  63. 

PRIVATE  Journal,  extract  from  my, 
287. 

PRIVATE  theatricals,  47. 

PROBABILITIES  provided  with  buf- 
fers, 63. 

PROFESSION,  literary  men  should 
have  a,  207. 

PROFESSOR,  my  friend  the,  28,  80, 
90,  101,  123,  130,  137,  170,  171  et 
seq.,  201,  206  et  seq.,  224,  226,  227, 
262,  281  et  seq.,  294,  341  et  seq. 

PROLOGUE,  49. 

PUBLIC  Garden,  318. 

PUGILISTS,  when  "stale,"  180. 

PUNNING,  quotations  respecting,  14. 

PUNS,  law  respecting,  12 ;  what  they 
consist  in,  55;  surreptitiously  cir- 
culated among  the  company,  293. 

PUPIL  of  the  eye,  simile  concerning, 
the  Author  disgorges,  166. 


Q. 


Quantity,  false,  Sidney  Smith's  re- 
mark on,  125. 


R. 


RACE  of  life,  the,  report  of  running 

in,  108. 
RACES,  our  sympathies  go  naturally 

with  higher,  74. 
RACING,  not  republican,  38. 
RAPHAEL  and  Michael  Angelo,  237. 
RASPAIL'S  proof-sheets,  28. 
Rat  des  Salons  a  Lecture,  65. 
READING  for  the   sake  of  talking, 

154;  a  man's  and  a  woman's,  321. 


RECOLLECTIONS,  trivial,  essential  to 

our  identity,  243. 
RELATIVES,   opinions  of   as    to    a 

man's  powers,  60. 
REPEATING  one'.s  self,  7. 
REPUTATION,  living  on  contingent, 

68. 

REPUTATIONS,  conventional,  41. 
"  RETIRING  "  at  night,  etiquette  of, 

241. 
RHODE-ISLAND,  near   what    place, 

272. 
RHYMES,  old,  we  get  tired  of,  20; 

bad  to  chew  upon.  338. 
RIDICULOUS,  love  of,  dangerous  to 

literary  men,  102. 
ROSES,  damask,  264,  267. 
ROWING,  nearest  approach  to  flying, 

195;  its  excellencies,  ib. ;  its  joys, 

196. 
"  ROYAL    GEORGE,"  the,  Cowper's 

poem  on,  329. 

RUM,  the  term  applied  by  low  peo- 
ple to  noble  fluids,  220. 


S. 


SAAS-PLATES,  357. 

SADDLE-LEATHER  compared  to  sole- 
leather,  192. 

"  SAHTISFAHCTION,"  a  tepid  ex- 
pression, 120. 

SAINT  Genevieve,  visit  to  church  of, 
327. 

1  SAINTS  and  their  Bodies,"  an  ad- 
mirable Essay,  189. 

SANTORINI'S  laughing-muscle,  224. 

SAVING  one's  thoughts,  29. 

SCHOOLMISTRESS,  the,  35,  47,  68,  85, 
86,  97,  122,  133,  142,  143,  156,  211, 
212,  234  et  seq.,  242,  244  et  seq., 
264,  278,  286  et  seq.,  311,  358  et 
seq.  364. 

"SCIENCE,"  the  Professor's  inward 
smile  at  her  airs,  206. 

SCIENTIFIC  certainty  has  no  spring 
in  it,  63. 

SCIENTIFIC  knowledge  partakes  of 
insolence,  62. 

SCRAPING  the  floor,  effect  of,  56. 

SEA  and  Mountains,  308. 

SEED  capsule  (of  poems,)  232. 

SELF-DETERMINING  power,  limita- 
tion of,  100. 

SELF-ESTEEM,  with  good  ground,  is 
imposing,  11. 

SELF-MADE  men,  22 


372 


INDEX. 


SERMON,  proposed,  of  the  Author, 

97. 
SERMONS,  feeble,  hard  to  listen  to, 

but  may  act  inductively,  32. 
SENTIMENTS,      all     splashed     and 

streaked  with,  267. 
SEVEN  Wise  Men  of  Boston,  their 

sayings,  142. 
SHAKSPEARE,  old  copy,  with  flakes 

of  pie-crust  between  its  leaves,  88. 
SHAWL,  the  Indian  blanket,  21. 
SHORTENING  weapons  and  lengthen- 
ing boundaries,  22. 
SHIP,  the,  and  martin-house,  240. 
SHIPS,  afraid  of,  238. 
SHOP-BLINDS,  iron,  produce  a  shiver, 

312. 
SIERRA  LEONE,  native  of,  enjoying 

himself,  351. 
SIGHT,  pretended  failure  of,  in  old 

persons,  199. 
SIMILITUDE  and  analogies,  ocean  of, 

94. 
Sm,  its  tools  and  their  handle,  142  ; 

introduction  to,  243. 
SMELL,  as  connected  with  the  mem- 
ory, etc.  83. 

SMILE,  the  terrible,  223. 
SMITH,  Sidney,  abused  by  London 

Quarterly  Review,  103. 
SNEAKING  fellows  to  be  regarded 

tenderly,  255. 

SOCIETIES  of  mutual  admiration,  2. 
SOUL,  its  concentric  envelops,  281. 
SOUNDS,  suggestive  ones,  246,  247. 
SPARRING,  the  Professor  sees  a  little, 

and  describes  it,  198. 
SPOKEN  language  plastic,  30. 
SPORTING  men,  virtues  of,  41. 
SPRING  HAS  COME,  228. 
SQUIRMING  when  old  falsehoods  are 

turned  over,  129. 
STAGE-RUFFIAN,  the,  58. 
"  STARS,  the,  and  the  earth,"  a  little 

book,  referred  to,  310. 
STATE  HOUSE,  Boston,  the  hub  of 

the  solar  system,  143. 
"  STATOO  of 'deceased  infant,"  124. 
STILLICIDIUM,  sentimental,  89. 
STONE,  flat,  turning  over  of,  127. 
STRANGER,  who  came  with  young 

fellow  called  John,  143,  356. 
"STRAP!"  my  man  John's  story, 

121. 
STRASBURG  Cathedral,  rocking  of  its 

spire,  331. 

STRIKING  in  of  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings, 153. 


STUART,  his  two  portraits,  24. 
SUMMER  residence,  choice  of,  309. 
SUN  AND  SHADOW,  45. 
SUNDAY  mornings,  how  the  Author 

shows  his  respect  for,  201. 
SWANS,  taking  his  ducks  for,  319. 
SWIFT,  property  restored  to,  168. 
SWORDS,  Roman  and  American,  21. 
SYLVA  NOVANGLICA,  275. 
SYNTAX,  Dr.  270. 


T. 


TALENT,  a  little  makes  people  jeal- 
ous, 2. 

TALKERS,  real,  164. 

TALKING  like  playing  at  a  mark 
with  an  engine,  30;  one  of  the 
fine  arts,  58. 

TEAPOT,  literary,  70. 

THE  LAST  BLOSSOM,  186. 

THE  OLD  MAN  DREAMS,  76. 

THE  TWO  ARMIES,  262. 

THE  VOICELESS,  355. 

THEOLOGICAL  students,  we  all  are, 
32. 

THOUGHT  revolves  in  cycles,  80 ;  if 
uttered,  is  a  kind  of  excretion,  227. 

THOUGHTS  may  be  original,  though 
often  before'  uttered,  8 ;  saving, 
29;  shaped  in  conversation,  30; 
tell  worst  to  minister  and  best  to 
young  people,  33;  my  best  seem 
always  old,  34;  real,  knock  out 
somebody's  wind,  129. 

THOUGHT-SPRINKLERS,  30. 

TIME  and  space,  310. 

TOBACCO-STAIN  may  strike  into 
character,  116. 

TOBACCO-STOPPER,  lovely  one,  116. 

TOWNS,  small,  not  more  modest  than 
cities,  144. 

TOY,  author  carves  a  wonderful  at 
Marseilles,  208. 

TOYS  moved  by  sand,  caution  from 
one,  90. 

TRAVEL,  maxims  relating  to,  325; 
recollections  of,  326. 

TREE,  growth  of,  as  shown  by  rings 
of  wood,  331 ;  slice  of  a  hemlock, 
331 ;  its  growth  compared  to  hu- 
man lives,  332. 

TREES,  great,  268;  mother-idea  in 
each  kind  of,  270 ;  afraid  of  meas- 
uring-tape, 272;  Mr.  Emerson's 
report  on,  273;  of  America,  our 
friend's  interesting  work  on,  276. 


INDEX. 


373 


TREE-WIVES,  268. 

TKIADS,  writing  in,  95. 

TROIS  Freres,  dinners  at  the,  86. 

TROTTING,  democratic  and  favora- 
ble to  many  virtues,  40 ;  matches 
not  races,  40. 

TRUTH,  primary  relations  with,  16. 

TRUTHS  and  lies  compared  to  cubes 
and  spheres,  132. 

TUPPER,  18,  361. 

TUPPERIAN  wisdom,  317. 

TUTOR,  my  late  Latin,  his  verses, 
307. 

U. 
UNLOVED,  the,  354. 


V. 

VENEERING  in  conversation,  164. 

VERSE,  proper  medium  for  revealing 
our  secrets,  67. 

VERSES,  album,  17;  abstinence  from 
writing,  the  mark  of  a  poet,  233. 

VERSE-WRITERS,  their  peculiarities, 
338. 

VIOLINS,  soaked  in  music,  117;  take 
a  century  to  dry,  118. 

VIRTUES,  negative,  306. 

VISITORS,  getting  rid  of,  when  their 
visit  is  over,  19. 

VOICE,  the  Teutonic  maiden's,  250; 
the  German  woman's,  251;  the 
little  child's  in  the  hospital,  252. 

VOICES,  certain  female,  248;  fear- 
fully sweet  ones,  249;  hard  and 
sharp,  251;  people  do  not  know 
their  own,  253;  sweet  must  be- 
long to  good  spirits,  253. 

Voleur,  brand  of,  on  galley  rogues, 
120. 

VOLUME,  man  of  one,  165. 


W. 

WALKING  arm  against  arm,  20 ;  laws 
of,  80;  the  Professor  sanctions, 
191;  riding  and  rowing  compared, 
193,  194. 

WASP,  sloop  of  war,  239. 

WATCH-PAPER,  the  old  gentleman's, 
244. 


WATER,  the  white-pine  pail  of,  232. 

WEDDING,  the,  364. 

WEDDING-PRESENTS,  the,  361. 

WELLINGTON,  gentle  in  his  old  age, 
92. 

WHAT  WE  ALL  THINK,  168. 

WILL,  compared  to  a  drop  of  water 
in  a  crystal,  96. 

WILLOWS  in  Maine,  335. 

WINE  of  ancients,  75. 

WIT  takes  imperfect  views  of  things, 
55. 

WOMAN,  an  excellent  instrument  for 
a  nerve-player,  148;  to  love  a, 
must  see  her  through  a  pin-hole, 
258;  must  be  true  as  death,  315; 
marks  of  low  and  bad  blood  in, 
316;  love-capacity  in,  ib.;  pride 
in,  316;  why  she 'should  not  say 
too  much,  317. 

WOMEN,  young,  advice  to,  54 ;  first 
to  detect  a  poet,  211 ;  inspire  poets, 
211;  their  praise  the  poet's  re- 
ward, 211;  all,  love  all  men,  257; 
all  men  love  all,  257 ;  pictures  of, 
257;  who  have  weighed  all  that 
life  can  offer,  322. 

WOODBRIDGE,  Benjamin,  his  grave, 
279,  280. 

WORLD,  old  and  new,  comparison 
of  their  tvpes  of  organization, 
276. 

WRITING  with  feet  in  hot  water,  7 ; 
like  shooting  with  a  rifle,  30. 


YES?  in  conversation,  20. 

YOUNG  FELLOW  called  John,  60,  72, 

81,  88, 114,  128,  201,  216,  223,  224, 
-241,  254,  268,  293,  300,  306,  356, 

362. 
YOUNG  LADY  come  to  be  finished 

off,  10. 
YOUTH,  flakes  off  like  button- wood 

bark,  177;  American,  not  perfect 

type  of  physical  humanity,  197; 

and  age,  what  Author  means  by, 

231. 


Z. 


ZlMMERMANN,  7. 


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